SPEAKER_00: Hey, good morning, Grace Church.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pleasure and a joy to worship Jesus with you this morning as we lift his name on high.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here at the second service, or if you're joining us online or watching in one of our other venues.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or Bible app, I encourage you to open up to Proverbs chapter 6, verses 6 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: So it's Proverbs chapter 6, verses 6 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible or Bible app, those verses will be on screen as I go throughout the message this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series called Wisdom for Life.
SPEAKER_00: We are been learning how to live God's way and God's world because we believe that God created this world.
SPEAKER_00: And when God created this world and God created you, he put forth a right way of living in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And when we are living rightly, we are living with wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: I want to say thank you also to Pastor David and Pastor Mike, who filled in the last two Sundays, did an excellent job preaching God's truth and God's wisdom in the area of parenting and in the area of finances.
SPEAKER_00: Two difficult areas that we all, uh many of us will end up dealing with throughout our life.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what wisdom is.
SPEAKER_00: It's my simple working definition.
SPEAKER_00: Wisdom is this wisdom is knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong, and then choosing to do what is right.
SPEAKER_00: I really don't believe wisdom is complex in terms of gaining it to learn what is right and what is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I think the hardship of wisdom is in the application, actually doing the wise thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's where the rubber meets the road, and living rightly in God's world can become challenging because there's a lot of times throughout life when I just really want to do what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: Can I get an amen?
SPEAKER_00: Now you don't want amen that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_00: I really want to do what God wants me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Get an amen to that one?
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: No, but there's times when you just really want to do what you want to do, even though it's not what you think or what you know God wants you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, while there's small areas of our life where that's pretty easily discerned, the greatest area in our life where we need to understand how God wants us to live rightly is in how we spend our time.
SPEAKER_00: He lays it all throughout his word.
SPEAKER_00: But here's a couple of realities about time.
SPEAKER_00: Time is something you can't help but to spend.
SPEAKER_00: You have it, you have no idea how much of it you have, and you will spend it, whether you want to or not.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things about our time is where we spend our time, sometimes it produces fruit and it's useful.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of places we spend time that were pretty much a waste of time.
SPEAKER_00: That happens for many of us.
SPEAKER_00: In a given day, we have invested time and we also have wasted time.
SPEAKER_00: Now we live in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and in this Commonwealth, William Penn, one of his famous quotes about time is this time is what we want most, but use worst.
SPEAKER_00: He's direct to the point.
SPEAKER_00: And he's true.
SPEAKER_00: Time is what we want most.
SPEAKER_00: We're always trying to find time, balance time, get the right rhythms in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We want it to be spent well, and yet every single day, every single week, every single month, sometimes we look back and say, Man, I kind of wasted my time.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I utilize it in the best way.
SPEAKER_00: Another problem with time is that the older you get, the faster you spend time.
SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard it said, the older you get, the faster time goes.
SPEAKER_00: It's a perception of reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's like all this time you thought you had is just suddenly gone.
SPEAKER_00: And when you look back on your life and you're like, where did all my time go?
SPEAKER_00: What did I do with my time?
SPEAKER_00: And if you've ever met someone who's having a genuine midlife crisis, they're actually having a time crisis.
SPEAKER_00: They've assessed their time and realized that with it, they didn't get the results they actually wanted.
SPEAKER_00: So they changed the whole course of their life.
SPEAKER_00: They start doing crazy things like buying convertibles, whatever, all in order to regain and capture some more meaningful time in this world.
SPEAKER_00: So time is a fleeting thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's finite, it's a really valuable resource.
SPEAKER_00: And many people will tell you that time is the most precious resource you have.
SPEAKER_00: And where you invest it matters.
SPEAKER_00: And why where you invest your time matters is really true.
SPEAKER_00: Is time really the most finite resource we have?
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a question worth posing because the Bible talks about time very differently.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the Bible talks about time in the terms of eternality.
SPEAKER_00: So the Bible does not think about time in terms of moments and seconds.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible thinks about time in seasons and eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And what you learn as you read scriptures that time for every person is eternal, and it's lived in seasons, not measured in minutes.
SPEAKER_00: But in our world, they would have you believe that your time is a finite thing.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Time is an eternal thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's simply just lived in seasons and not measured in minutes.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible teaches us that we are eternal beings.
SPEAKER_00: And if we think that we are a temporary creature, when we believe that time is limited or that time is finite, we can start to be run by our anxieties and our lack of securities.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible tells us that Christians have an eternal, an eternal reality ahead of us where time is not nearly the culprit that we think it is today.
SPEAKER_00: So here's some truths about time from the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing is this you will have two lives.
SPEAKER_00: You have the life you're living today, and this life is a very specific season.
SPEAKER_00: And in this season, there are a lot of different moments.
SPEAKER_00: There's really wonderful moments in this season.
SPEAKER_00: There's the anniversaries and celebrations, there's the people you meet, the people you fall in love with, there's the children you have, there's the jobs you get, the accomplishments you get.
SPEAKER_00: There's wonderful moments in this season.
SPEAKER_00: But in this season, there's genuine hardship.
SPEAKER_00: Every person who's been alive and is living, you have moments of real hardship, relational burdens, financial burdens, emotional hurts and pains.
SPEAKER_00: And so in this particular season of your eternal existence, there is really good and there is really bad.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first season of life.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a second season.
SPEAKER_00: If you die before the Lord comes back, you will have a spiritual season, a season in which you are eternally existent in spirit form in the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They call that heaven, they call that paradise.
SPEAKER_00: It is a place of peace and rest, and it's wonderful and great.
SPEAKER_00: But the Bible teaches another reality about the eternal existence of time.
SPEAKER_00: That one day Christ will come back from heaven, he will bodily resurrect those of us who have died, and your spirit will be put inside of a new eternal body.
SPEAKER_00: So for the Christian, time is not limited.
SPEAKER_00: It's not measured in moments and seconds, it's measured in terms of seasons.
SPEAKER_00: And your living life, this life now, is simply a season.
SPEAKER_00: And when you die and you stand before the Lord, it's simply the end of this season and the beginning of the next.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what we learn about time from 2 Peter 3, 9 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: It says, but do not forget this one thing, and that tells me that we as people are prone to forget this.
SPEAKER_00: With the Lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is speaking to the relativity of time.
SPEAKER_00: If you are an eternal creature, then you don't measure in moments of hours or times, you measure in moments of seasons.
SPEAKER_00: So the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness, but in keeping with his promise, we look forward to this new season, to a new season where there is a new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells.
SPEAKER_00: So we have a whole verse here that talks about the eternality of God, how God thinks about time, and God is not worried about the days or the years or the hours.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a beautiful season that is coming for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: A season in which we will all dwell in righteousness with God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: Dwelling in righteousness is going to be a place where God is physically present, where sin is absent, where fellowship among people and between God is perfect, and your purpose is 100% perfected.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's for the joy of the next season.
SPEAKER_00: Many people in this season try to figure out their purpose.
SPEAKER_00: What's my purpose?
SPEAKER_00: They spend all this time working towards finding a purpose so they have meaning in this world.
SPEAKER_00: That is one of the byproducts of sin that we don't really know our true purpose.
SPEAKER_00: But in heaven, upon the resurrection of the dead, where there is perfection, you will have perfect purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And so you will spend the eternality of your time working and living in fellowship among other people in perfect purpose.
SPEAKER_00: That's a joy to look forward to.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait till it's perfect, can't you?
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be good.
SPEAKER_00: So we look forward to the time when it's perfect.
SPEAKER_00: But as a result, for the believer, for the follower of Jesus, we do have a mantra found in Scripture that because we know that there is an eternity coming in which there is a perfect eternity for all of us where we live, we cry out, Oh death, where is your sting?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, death doesn't hold the same grip on us anymore because death is the end of perceived time for the world in which you live.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end of time.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If you don't believe in anything beyond this life, then you've got this one life to live.
SPEAKER_00: YOLO, have fun, right?
SPEAKER_00: The end of time is death.
SPEAKER_00: And when the end of time is death, there's real anxiety, there's real insecurity, and as you approach closer to what you perceive to be the day of your death, the urgency tends to kick in.
SPEAKER_00: See, death is seen by the world in which you live as the loss of time.
SPEAKER_00: The clocks run out, the bell is told, you punched your ticket.
SPEAKER_00: That's not true for the believer.
SPEAKER_00: For the follower of Jesus, you're simply ending one season and moving in to the next season.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what scripture tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is measured in seasons.
SPEAKER_00: This life, the spirit life, the eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: They are distinct seasons of living in which you will all live and they have different purposes.
SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the reasons that God is so creative is that He created this planet to have seasons.
SPEAKER_00: And I was pretty sure Tuesday and Wednesday we skipped spring and hit summer.
SPEAKER_00: But man, we're we are right back to winter as of this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's just cold, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like the seasons haven't quite figured it out.
SPEAKER_00: But the seasons teach us about purpose.
SPEAKER_00: There is purpose to every season in terms of sustaining and encouraging the physical creation called the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, every season of your life has very specific purposes.
SPEAKER_00: Ecclesiastes 3 tells us this.
SPEAKER_00: For everything, there is a season, and there's a time for every matter under heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a season and a time, and what's gorgeous about the Bible is that God is very clear with you how you are supposed to spend this season of life.
SPEAKER_00: Your living years, from zero to however long you have, there is a purpose, and God reveals his purpose, and you can find that in Proverbs chapter 6, verses 6 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Now, before I read the Proverb, it's oftentimes used to teach about work.
SPEAKER_00: And if you've grown up in church, you've probably heard about working hard and being diligent and preparing for the future.
SPEAKER_00: Most people will teach this proverb that way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm teaching this proverb in light of eternity, not in light of your earthly life.
SPEAKER_00: So while some principles apply for today and the years in which you live, these principles will apply for the eternity of your life.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the first thing we learn about time according to Proverbs 6, 6 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Time is to be used today to prepare for an abundant eternity.
SPEAKER_00: This is Proverbs chapter 6, 6 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the ant, you sluggard, and consider its ways and be wise.
SPEAKER_00: It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer, and it gathers its food and harvest.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, the ant is preparing in summer and harvest to store away food for a new season that's coming, a time of winter in which food is no longer abundant.
SPEAKER_00: So the ant is diligent to work today to prepare for a better tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's how we can preach this passage.
SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of you have spent your life learning principles about working today in preparation for a better tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And you've done that with things like your retirement, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00: You've started to stack some money away into investment accounts, you put some money in savings, you have your Social Security net, which may or may not be there, but you're thinking about it, and you have prepared today for an eventual tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: If you want something even closer to home, I bet a couple of months ago, if you have jobs where you get paid time off, you submitted or began submitting your vacation requests for this summer, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're preparing today for a preferred opportunity in the future.
SPEAKER_00: That's the typical way to understand this passage.
SPEAKER_00: But in light of eternity, we have to think a little bit differently.
SPEAKER_00: Because are you guaranteed to see tomorrow?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: So you can work diligently today and restore up all kinds of money today for retirement, but you could very well die tomorrow and never realize the thing you were working for.
SPEAKER_00: But you do you know what you are guaranteed to realize?
SPEAKER_00: You are guaranteed to realize eternity.
SPEAKER_00: So you can work for today for all the things of this world, preparing them and saving them and storing them up for a hope for tomorrow, which you may never see.
SPEAKER_00: Or, as Jesus says, you can work today to prepare for an eternity for a next season of life that you're guaranteed to see.
SPEAKER_00: This is how we have to think about our time.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm guilty of this.
SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of my time working for the things of this world.
SPEAKER_00: 40, 50, 60 hours a week, negotiating income and salaries, trying to earn money to attain temporary things.
SPEAKER_00: We've all done this.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us still do it.
SPEAKER_00: And while some of that is good and important, that can't be the only way we spend time.
SPEAKER_00: If we do, we're missing the point.
SPEAKER_00: Because here is a guarantee.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 9.27 says this.
SPEAKER_00: People are destined to die once, and then after that face judgment.
SPEAKER_00: That's Hebrews 9.27.
SPEAKER_00: People are destined to die once, and then after that face judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in that judgment for the follower of Jesus, this is not a judgment where you are sent to hell or God is mad at you.
SPEAKER_00: For the follower of Jesus, this is a judgment of reward in which Jesus will stand before you and dole out for you eternal rewards based on the work that you did in faith for him while you are alive today.
SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful experience to look forward to.
SPEAKER_00: And as your pastor, can you believe me when I tell you, I want you to have the best eternity possible?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to have the most abundant eternity possible.
SPEAKER_00: But if you want to have an abundant eternity, you have to begin working today.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's in this season that you prepare for the next season.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6, 19 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and verma destroy, and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and verma do not destroy, and when thieves do not break in and steal, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus acknowledges there are two kinds of work that every person is going to have in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The first is the work in which you are working for temporary treasures.
SPEAKER_00: The house, the car, the vacation, the provision, it's all temporary.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not unimportant.
SPEAKER_00: It is important work, and we are called to do it.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a second kind of work work that bears eternal results, work that brings about treasures in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is pretty clear in this passage, one of those works matters more than the other.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is far more concerned about us working toward eternity than he is about us working for our earthly provisions.
SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say various things about that.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I think we learn from Jesus in this passage: Eternal life will absolutely be perfectly good for every single believer because you receive that eternal life by grace.
SPEAKER_00: But it will not be identical for every believer, because rewards are given according to faithfulness to do the work that God has prepared in advance for you to do.
SPEAKER_00: So your salvation is guaranteed in Christ, but your eternity will look different based upon the rewards that you are given by God because of your faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Ephesians 3, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: For we, brothers and sisters in Christ, are his workmanship.
SPEAKER_00: We created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
SPEAKER_00: God in eternity past, when he called you by name to become one of his children, prepared real, eternal works for you to do here on earth that bear real kingdom fruit.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God's prepared in advance for you to do.
SPEAKER_00: And it's his will that you would walk in them.
SPEAKER_00: And as you walk in them, you will be awarded for your faithfulness in the work.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when this season of your life comes to an end and you stand before Jesus Christ, he will judge you on whether or not you are faithful to do the work, not on whether or not you are perfect in completing the work.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is a really important thing.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us live in a world in which we understand that if your employer or your supervisor or the whoever is in charge of you gives you a task, you're supposed to complete it and you're supposed to complete it the right way.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been in a situation where you did a task, but you didn't do it quite right, and you got chewed out for it?
SPEAKER_00: You've done that.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a little bit of pressure sometimes when we're given a task to get it done the right way.
SPEAKER_00: God does not judge our accomplishment of the task based on our perfection, he judges it based on our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he goes about working for us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way under that's the way we understand how compensation generally works in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Is that when we are faithful to do the work that God has put aside for us, regardless of whether or not we get it done the right way, he rewards our faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, we all have spiritual works prepared in advance for us to do, and you're all going to at some point in time be led by the Spirit of God into doing those works.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's today or tomorrow, there's going to be a time.
SPEAKER_00: Well, five years ago, the Holy Spirit of God spoke to me and he said, Dan, I want you to go to Grace Church Liddits, where you're going to feed the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Those were the actual words.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to feed the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Okay, Lord, I'm going to be faithful to go to Grace Church Lidits.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I am here for 30 years and you are all here with me for the entire amount of time, you'll have heard me preach about 1,260 sermons, according to about 600 hours of preaching time from the pulpits.
SPEAKER_00: And I guarantee you that if you're here that long, there will be times when you say, He was faithful, but it wasn't good.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: I am simply not called to be perfect at it, I'm only called to be faithful with it.
SPEAKER_00: And as I am faithful to do the work that God has called me to, that faithfulness becomes an acceptable offering to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what 2 Corinthians 8.12 says.
SPEAKER_00: For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 8.12.
SPEAKER_00: For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have.
SPEAKER_00: So it is our willingness to do the will of God, our willingness to be obedient to the word of God that is rewarded.
SPEAKER_00: But in order to do the good work that God has planned for us to do in advance, two things have to be true about us.
SPEAKER_00: We have to know the word of God, because God reveals his will in the Word of God, and we have to know the Spirit of God, because He leads us to doing His will through the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: When you know the Word of God, and then you're being led by the Spirit of God, He will bring you to fulfill these good works that He's prepared for you to do in advance.
SPEAKER_00: You will know what the good work is.
SPEAKER_00: And when the good work comes, you step into it, and you are obedient to it, regardless of perfection and how you go about completing the task.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Word of God tells you and teaches you plainly that you are to be a hospitable person to the stranger, and then the Spirit of God, through circumstances, brings a stranger into your life, and you feel prompted by the Spirit of God to be exceptionally hospitable to this person, you have one thing you're supposed to do: be obedient and show hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: It very well be that the Lord will ask you to take them into your home and to sacrificially give more time and more money and more care to this person than you ever felt like you should ever possibly have to give to anybody who's not your own kid.
SPEAKER_00: But when that time comes, you do it faithfully, even if you don't do it perfectly.
SPEAKER_00: The Word of God says we're to live by faith, and in living by faith, we are to give generously.
SPEAKER_00: There will be moments when the Spirit of God then leads you, either through a church opportunity or another organization opportunity, or your own personal call by the Holy Spirit of God, to be generous with your resources, to give a large financial sacrificial gift to something or someone for the sake of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And when that comes, you have simply one responsibility: to step into the good work that God's prepared for you and let his generosity shine through you.
SPEAKER_00: You know, the Word of God teaches that we are to rejoice in suffering and remain faithful in trial.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the word teaches.
SPEAKER_00: It very well could be that the Spirit of God then leads you into a season of suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And in that season of suffering, there is an opportunity for you to be filled by the Spirit of God and become a faithful endurer of the suffering or the trial that God has placed on you, so that Christ can be made more perfect in your own life, even though you have to go through suffering for the sanctification to occur.
SPEAKER_00: You see, when the word instructs it and the Spirit of God leads you to it, that is the good work that God has prepared for you in advance to do.
SPEAKER_00: And you do that faithfully.
SPEAKER_00: And as you are faithful to do that for the Lord, he recognizes that and honors you with eternal compensation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, many of you, when you began working as a young person, you negotiated your hourly rate or your salary or whatever you did with your employer before you accepted the job.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Jesus does not tell us exactly what these heavenly treasures are, but he does say this, Paul says this, that no eye has seen and no ear has heard what awaits those who love Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And those who love Jesus are those who submit to his lordship and walk in obedience with his decrees through his word and through the leading of the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: As you're doing those things, as you're fulfilling the word of God, being led by the Spirit of God, and you're increasing the kingdom of heaven here on earth, you are being compensated richly in eternity for it, even if it costs you suffering here in this life.
SPEAKER_00: That's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're sitting in this room, you're like, Pastor, I can't, I don't got time to seek after Jesus that hard.
SPEAKER_00: I can't have time to fully press into being obedient all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There is a unique promise in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It's the upside-down reality of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what it means: seeking the kingdom today leads to fulfillment in this season of life.
SPEAKER_00: I promise you, this is how it works.
SPEAKER_00: Seeking the kingdom today, putting all your time and effort into expanding the kingdom of God, does lead to fulfillment in this season of life.
SPEAKER_00: Lift into Proverbs chapter 6, verses 9 through 12.
SPEAKER_00: How long will you lie there, you sluggard?
SPEAKER_00: When will you get up from your sleep?
SPEAKER_00: A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
SPEAKER_00: And poverty will come on you like a thief, and scarcity like an armed man, a troublemaker and a villain who goes with that with a corrup who goes about with a corrupt mouth.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what this little passage is speaking here.
SPEAKER_00: Uses the word sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Now, to sleep in this verse is not actually the idea of just sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: It's the idea of delay.
SPEAKER_00: A little sleep, a little slumber.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I know there's something I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: I know the work that is before me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply going to delay it for a little bit of time.
SPEAKER_00: It's not actually talking about rest.
SPEAKER_00: Rest is good.
SPEAKER_00: God created it.
SPEAKER_00: We should all rest.
SPEAKER_00: I rested yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you did too.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, some of you will even rest tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Rest is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is a warning about delay.
SPEAKER_00: If God has revealed for you the good work you're supposed to do, the things you're supposed to do to serve Him, and then you delay it, and then you push it off, you're not only being disobedient, but you're also refusing to, or you're also not going to receive the reward that God may have for you in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And so the sluggard says, I'm just going to do it a little bit later.
SPEAKER_00: They justify in action for the sake of personal comfort.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the sluggard's doing.
SPEAKER_00: And so the sluggard will say, you know what, I know what the Word of God teaches, but I'm just going to obey it later.
SPEAKER_00: I know that God's calling me to serve with my gifts, but I'm just busy.
SPEAKER_00: I will serve later.
SPEAKER_00: I know that at some point in time I got to get serious about following Jesus, but I simply will get serious about following Jesus later.
SPEAKER_00: I know the church has a mission and they're trying to reach people for Jesus, and I'll do that, but I'll just do it later.
SPEAKER_00: I know I got to make a phone call and really set things right with that person in my life because the Spirit's been prompting me to do it, but I'm just going to do it later.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not not going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not going to do it today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to be sluggardish as I work towards obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the kingdom of God, work in the kingdom of God is not something we delay until life gets easier or we feel like doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Seek first.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what first means?
SPEAKER_00: First means first.
SPEAKER_00: Not second, not third, not later, not someday.
SPEAKER_00: First means first.
SPEAKER_00: First means today.
SPEAKER_00: Not when your schedule clears, not when your kids are older, not when your job slows down, not when retirement comes, not when everything feels secure and tidy, and now I have the ability to serve Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Today means today.
SPEAKER_00: And first means first.
SPEAKER_00: You know, some people delay in doing the work of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: They know what they're supposed to do, but they delay it because they'd rather do something else or they're comfortable in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: But there's some people who don't do the work of the kingdom because they're ruled by their anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: Anxiety for some of us can make us work harder, but we just work for the wrong kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Matthew 6, 25, 34.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body or what you will put on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if you're an anxious person, but if you're an anxious person, usually it becomes from a sense of insecurity.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel secure about my future.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel secure about this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel secure about God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: I have a control issue and I'm trying to control the outcome because that helps me feel secure.
SPEAKER_00: And if I can't control it, anxiety comes in.
SPEAKER_00: If you are ruled by your anxiety, you will spend your entire time working to secure your own future and your own life.
SPEAKER_00: You'll secure the money, secure the kids, secure the schedule, secure the house, and the entire time you're working for you, you're missing out on the work for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of that work matters.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying it's not important to think and work diligently with your time and your career and for your family.
SPEAKER_00: But there is a kind of work that becomes unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: We start working towards our own securities out of a deep sense of fear instead of trusting God to provide for all of our needs.
SPEAKER_00: So you have two kinds of people here.
SPEAKER_00: You have the sluggard who knows what they're supposed to do, but just out of comfort won't get to it or will get around to it later, and they just sort of make excuses to not being obedient.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have the anxious person who wants to do the right things, but is driven to do all the right things for themselves and not do any of the right work for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I can do it, I just can't do it right now.
SPEAKER_00: Or because of my time is allocated over here, Lord, I'm busy taking care of the things you entrusted to me, and then I'll get around to that a little bit later.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, followers of Jesus, we have this incredible gift.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have to spend our whole life chasing after what the Father already knows we need.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6, 25, 33.
SPEAKER_00: If you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all of these things will be added to you as well.
SPEAKER_00: That's the promise.
SPEAKER_00: You seek the kingdom first, and as you meet the works of the kingdom to serve and advance the kingdom, God takes care of all of your other needs at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: This is a promise.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a promise about your earthly time.
SPEAKER_00: When you spend your earthly time working for the kingdom of heaven, seeking first the kingdom of heaven, God meets the needs of the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's this unique reality of following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Spending time building the kingdom of God, which lasts for an eternity, supplies our needs for today.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus promises here in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: When you seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all of this will be added to you as well.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as a follower of Jesus, and I'm somebody who follows Jesus daily as best as I can, there's still days where I find myself going, I just don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be a little honest with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: I woke up, saw the rain, I had a really good cup of coffee, I had my dog in my lap, and I was sitting there next to Amy and I was drinking my coffee, and I said, I don't want to go to church today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the pastor.
SPEAKER_00: But the flesh is real.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go do the thing that Jesus has called me to do today.
SPEAKER_00: I want to sit in this chair and drink coffee and pep my dog and watch the rain come down and sit next to my wife and enjoy this little cozy moment, but that's not what the Lord has asked me to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the Lord has asked any of us to do.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us moments to enjoy it, but we have different work ahead of us.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we make the sacrifice and we come here to worship, and thank you so much for this Memorial Day weekend, coming here to worship.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get these hours back in your day, but you know what you do get?
SPEAKER_00: You sometimes will walk away with a peace you didn't have before.
SPEAKER_00: And so by making time to worship, God's added something to your life that you know you desperately need that you can't attain on your own, which is peace.
SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes you spend time in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And you know that God's called you to pray, and sometimes you don't feel like praying, but when you spend time in prayer, even though you're taking time from your life, and even though things don't immediately change, sometimes our anxiety begins to change.
SPEAKER_00: Our control begins to change.
SPEAKER_00: We start to let go of the things that we have a grip on, and our trust grows in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so by taking time to pray, we've increased our trust and our anxiety lowers.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, when you pursue the kingdom of heaven, God will oftentimes not just meet the presenting need, he'll meet the need behind the need.
SPEAKER_00: The deeper emotional need, the soul-filled need of what brings you a sense of security, peace that surpasses all understanding here in this world.
SPEAKER_00: So preparing for your eternal future, I promise you this preparing for the eternal future that awaits you gives you the present that you want.
SPEAKER_00: I know what you're looking for, I know what the body wants, I know what the flesh wants, what the mind wants, but if you spend your time thinking about the kingdom of heaven first, God meets the rest of your needs.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's how we go about doing that.
SPEAKER_00: We orient our time around the kingdom of heaven by loving God and loving people.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds a little simple, but this is what Jesus teaches us that the greatest use of our time is spent in these two areas.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Jesus' teaching in Mark 12, verses 30 through 31.
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, with all your strength.
SPEAKER_00: And the second is this love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: There is no greater commandment than these, other than to love God and love your neighbor.
SPEAKER_00: So loving God is really not all that complex.
SPEAKER_00: Loving God involves knowing the Word of God, what God teaches, being led by the Spirit of God, to being obedient to what the Word of the God and Spirit of God are leading you to do.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus says, if you love me, you obey my commands.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we love God?
SPEAKER_00: We know the word of God, we're led by the Spirit of God, we do the works that God's prepared for us in advance, we're obedient to the teachings of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: That's loving God.
SPEAKER_00: When I dedicate my life to that, I am seeking the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And as I dedicate my life to that, God will then move my view towards other people.
SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna bring people into my life that I am called to love.
SPEAKER_00: Love sacrificially, give more of myself to them than I ever really wanted to give to anybody else, because that's what Jesus did for me.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave all of himself for me, every little bit of it.
SPEAKER_00: And he asks us to love our neighbor and give ourselves for them.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus, if a blind beggar wanted his time, he gave them his time.
SPEAKER_00: If a child wanted to come to Jesus, you know what Jesus did?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Let the little children come to me.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the rest of the world sees them as interruptions, but sometimes the interruption is the assignment.
SPEAKER_00: And so bring that little child over to me.
SPEAKER_00: God brings people into our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spent time with people in his life who are outcasts, who are sinners, who are people that you just wouldn't choose to be with, but God brings them to you for the sake of you loving them and being the very person of Jesus to them.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how we spend our time.
SPEAKER_00: Sacrificially loving the one that God has put before us.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus only had 33 years.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: If you're over 33, you've lived longer than Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had 33 years.
SPEAKER_00: In that time, he loved God and he loved others.
SPEAKER_00: He spent his whole life doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And look at what happened.
SPEAKER_00: The world has been changed by the gospel because of his faithfulness to love God and to love others.
SPEAKER_00: And he gave, in his very last minutes, he gave.
SPEAKER_00: When he was on a cross, he gave for you, for me, for everyone.
SPEAKER_00: So this is what we do, Christian.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to take all of our time, to think about our time, not in terms of how we spend it for ourselves, but how we're going to spend it for the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the wise way of using time.
SPEAKER_00: And the promise that comes with it is this seek first the kingdom of God, and he will meet all your other needs as well.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus probably made the boldest statement about this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if you lose your life for me, you will gain it.
SPEAKER_00: If you lose your life for me, you will gain it.
SPEAKER_00: Follower of Jesus, my hope is that all of us understand, not only here in our minds, but down here in our hearts, that the best use of our time is to shed away any sense of self-focused use of our time and to pour it entirely into the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: As you do that, the deepest parts of your heart will be met.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we know that there is wisdom in your word.
SPEAKER_00: And that one of the greatest acts of wisdom is to apply your promises to our life.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, we know what's right, and we know it's wrong.
SPEAKER_00: We know it's right to seek first the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: We know it's wrong to seek first our own kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, here's the complexity.
SPEAKER_00: The complexity, the hardship is seeking the kingdom and doing what's right.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't have as much of an immediate, perceived return as pursuing the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, would you do this for us?
SPEAKER_00: Would you crucify our flesh?
SPEAKER_00: Would you put it down?
SPEAKER_00: Would you increase the Spirit of God in us so that you might become greater, that we might become lesser, that our time, Lord, would be wholly dedicated over to you, that you would then redeem our earthly time to bring about the kingdom of heaven here on earth, to meet not only our needs today, but Lord, to give us an abundant eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, I can't wait to see what you have in store for those who love you.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be incredible.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, give me the faith to believe and give us the faith to believe that those things are greater and better than anything here on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask that in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.