Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 6, 2023 | Guardrails - Time

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August 6, 2023 | Guardrails - Time · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're starting a new series this morning.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh for those of you who like to kind of plan ahead, we've got a series that's going through the month of August here, and then we're gonna have David Brickner, who is the director for Jews for Jesus, an organization that our church supports.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be visiting.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then we'll begin our series in 2 Corinthians the beginning of September or thereabouts.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh that will take us through the fall and the winter if I know anything about myself, and so that's what we'll have going on.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But for right now, we're starting a new series called Guardrails, and the idea behind this is that you know there are certain things that the Bible talks about, right?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: As we direct our lives around the instruction of scripture, um, there are certain things that the Bible says, do, don't do, right?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they're pretty, pretty straightforward.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then there are some things where the Bible presents uh what we're calling guardrails, where it's saying, you know, you can go, you can't go too far this way, you can't go too far this way, you've got to stay out of the ditches, and we have to sort of drive somewhere in the middle.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Another analogy that you can think of would be like um bumpers on a bowling lane, right?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, the last time you bowled with bumpers, um you should do it if you haven't in a while.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: It boosts your self-esteem because you never miss.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we are staying within the lanes there.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the reason why I like this analogy about bowling is because there's still an opportunity for us to get a strike.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's going to kind of be the challenge of this series is we're gonna look at these guardrails on four separate topics on uh time, work, friends, and finances.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And as we see what the Bible says about keeping us in line, the end of it for every single one is gonna be how do we balance these things together?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: How do we keep ourselves um working within the plan that God has for us, keeping all of the things that it's instructed us to do kind of in concert with one another.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning we are talking about time.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'll be honest with you, when at any time in school it will we had the opportunity to discuss philosophy or things like that, um, that was when I began to draw even more intensely in my notebook that I had in front of me, because it's just never really been something that I got into.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when it comes to time, uh it's obvious, uh, but we all deal with it, right?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all have challenges that we have to go through with regard to time.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, it's uh show of hands, the 1981 Sticks song, I've got too much time on my hands.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, there we go.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Classic rock fans.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, or hey, you remember back when you were in school and you're in math class or whatever it was, and you looked at the clock and it was 25 seconds since the last time you had looked at the clock?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like time is moving so slow, you just can't wait for it to be over.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or on the other end, like um uh our son Daniel is uh celebrating his one-year birthday at the end of this month, and that's wild to me that that's even happening.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're in a space of time right now where it feels like things are moving really fast, and it's kind of like sand going through your fingers.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you've probably experienced both of those extremes at one point or the other.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible gives us these guardrails with regard to time, and and the questions that come up are how are we supposed to view time, to think about it, to use it, uh, and to be the best stewards of the gift that God has given to us, which is an undetermined, meaning we don't know, amount of time on this earth.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first guardrail that we're gonna set up is actually has to do way more with God than it does us.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it has to do with God and his relationship to time.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be looking at a couple psalms here at the beginning.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: This one's Psalm 90.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is written by Moses, and he says, Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, you are God.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: So think for a second about the author, Moses, right?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you were with us in the book of Numbers, uh, you remember the journey that we went through with the Israelites as they were rescued from slavery in Egypt, and then were instructed to go to the promised land, but then they get to Kadesh Barneah, right, and they send in the spies and they decide they're not going to go in.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: They rebel against God, they go their own way, and God sends them into 40 years of wandering, where everybody who is over 20 years old who left Egypt outside of the Levites is going to die in the wilderness as a judgment for their sin, and it's the next generation that then arrives at the gates, gates, the border of the promised land, right?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine though you're Moses, because again, outside of the Levites, you, Caleb, and Joshua are the only ones who survived from the previous generation because of your faithfulness.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you have seen is thousands upon thousands of people over the last 40 years, your friends and your family, those you were in slavery in Egypt with, right?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those you parted the Red Sea with, they have now died.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, as Moses sort of has this imagery of generations passing away before his eyes, he says, Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: It approaches this amazing truth about God and his relationship to time, which is more than he is outside of it, right?
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: God is both immediately present in time, he is with us right now, and he is also above time.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: He is not constrained by it, he is consistent and everlasting.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as Moses says, he goes from eternity to eternity.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: God always was.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's no beginning to him, and there is no end to him.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's these sort of mind-blowing concepts that uh relate our first guardrail that we're looking at here, which is approaching an eternal perspective of time.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But see, the only way we can even really begin to understand an eternal perspective of time, and even then we're gonna struggle with it.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: But the only way we can even approach it is by comparing it to ourselves, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be those who have gone through generation after generation, finding refuge in the exact same, unchanging God?
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be those who are broken and finite and sinful and fleeting, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Another psalmist speaks about this in Psalm 90, verses 3 through 6, or as Moses continues rather, he says, You return mankind to the dust, saying, Return, descendants of Adam.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: For in your sight a thousand years are like yesterday that passes by, like a few hours of the night.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You end their lives, they sleep.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: They are like grass that grows in the morning, in the morning it sprouts and grows, by evening it withers and dries up.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, right, we're Moses.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: We see these things that are happening.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is why the Bible so often describes humanity's lifespan in comparison to God using things that disappear.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are smoke, we are mist, we are dew that comes in the morning and is gone by the morning.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are plants that grow and fall in the same day.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are things that dissipate.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in this space that Moses was establishing who God is amidst a generation that was falling away, right?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: To a new generation that was coming up.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: He is saying, This is the same God that you might find refuge in that your ancestors did.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so for Moses, it's not just that God is their refuge as they're walking through the desert, but it's that God was the refuge of Adam, of Noah, of Abraham, of Joseph, of Moses.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be the refuge of Joshua, the one that's going to take over, and on and on and on until the point that we arrive at today, and we say, God is the same God that Moses was worshiping back then.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is who we worship today.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And things have happened in time that have changed the context of that relationship, like Jesus.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: But as we go on, we say, hey, we worship the same God from eternity past to eternity future.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this movement from our finite lives into the realm of the eternal, of the timeless, of the everlasting that sort of broadens our horizon and sets up this guardrail.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, it involves us talking about ourselves in a way that can be kind of difficult.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody likes to refer to themselves as a mist that is gone and blown away by the wind.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody likes to be smoke in that analogy.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so in another Psalm 102, uh, there's a writer who is speaking about these things, reflecting on his relationship with the creator of the universe, the everlasting God, right?
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And for the first 11 verses, he's describing himself by saying these things like, I am smoke, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I am not able to do the things that I intended to do.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my days vanish.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But the author pivots around verse 12 from describing his frail state to describing God.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he begins by saying in verse 12 of 102, Lord, you are enthroned forever, your fame endures unto all generations.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: See, when we keep an eternal perspective of time when it comes to God, it takes our current situation, our struggles, our anxieties, our troubles, even our joys and our successes, and it puts them in a new light and a new context for a God that has always been and will always be.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a point where this bridge sort of from our finite lives to the eternal God, there's a point where that bridge sort of reveals a new reality, which is that God, if he is the refuge for generation after generation after generation, then there is a context where being the constant God, he is showing his love through his faithfulness to every single generation that comes through.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: See, in verse 12, the author of Psalm 102 pivots and begins speaking about the faithfulness of God.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: But listen to how he finishes the psalm.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But you are the same, and your years will never end, your servant's children will dwell securely, and their offspring will be established before you.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead of God just sort of being distant, you know, however we're going to describe him, being above time, not constrained by all these things that are just more definitions of God's existence as spirit, instead of that, it becomes deeply personal.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not just the God who has always endured and will always endure, but the author of the psalm is saying, Lord, you will be, you are my God, you will be the God of my children, you will be the God of my grandchildren, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And for any one of us who can relate to these kinds of things, right, we understand that we are picking up on a heritage that has come before and will exist after we're gone.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in that space is where we're supposed to lean first, or rather, I think establish this first guardrail, which is seeing that time and understanding it for our lives requires that we view it from an eternal perspective.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It can't just be about the, you know, the average American lifespan is about 80 years, okay?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: It can't just be about that time frame.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: It has to go beyond in both directions, because these are the things, these thoughts and these uh sort of activities when we look beyond the span of our life that draw us deeper into God's divine plan because we see that it's not just about what we're doing here, but what he has been doing for all time.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then as a part of that, as part of his beautiful divine plan that he is working out within time, within the span of our lives, now we see the opportunity that we have to participate in his beautiful plan.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: We get to be a segment, you know.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you, as a child or you have children or grandchildren, nieces, nephews, whatever, somebody small that is building with Legos, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this huge book, especially I remember putting together the Millennium Falcon when I was a kid.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was the biggest sort of construction that I ever had, and it had thousands upon thousands of pieces.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember the book, you know, being this thick, you know, and just looking at it as a kid, being like, how in the world?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: But page by page, you put in one little lego after the other, and then you have this thing at the end.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: You and I, we're like a page in the book, right?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And without that page, if it's ripped out, something is lost.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: But nevertheless, we have to look beyond to the grander picture and say that God is working out something on an eternal scale that we have the privilege to be a part of.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we kind of flip to the other side.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: We say, okay, well, what does it mean then to be a part of his divine plan, his eternal plan in the finite space of our lives?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul says in the book of Ephesians.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Pay careful attention then to how you walk, not as unwise people, but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days, they are evil.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And time itself is not evil.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens when time moves when we feel like time is moving too fast, or when we've lost time, or we realize there is no more time, that is what is evil.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's evil because you have to understand, right?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Time back in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve and their relationship with God, time was only a good thing.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was only more time to walk with God in the garden.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was only more time to speak with the Creator, it was only more time to have fellowship, it was only more time in the beauty of what they were doing.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then sin enters into the world and the fall comes, and now there's judgment for these things, and most of all, death.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And because of death, because of the change in that relationship, how we relate to time because of our sin has also changed.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is not just something that is beautiful, like it even will be in the future.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: In heaven, where we get to be with God in eternity.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: No more crying, no more pain, no more suffering.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: When we're in heaven, you will not be concerned about the hour hand on the clock, okay?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: You won't be looking at it because you will just understand what it is to be in complete fellowship and joy with God.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: But here, time ravages us, it breaks our bodies, it leads us towards death, it feels like it can steal things from us, and people are gone too soon.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: One of my friends from college this past Wednesday in Kansas City was the victim of a senseless act of violence, and a shooter came around and just indiscriminately was shooting people, and he found my friend in his car sitting in his car and put four shots through the windshield and seven through the driver's side door, killing him.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: He's younger than I am, and he's gone.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know when these things will happen, we don't know to whom they will happen, because we live in a broken world, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's this element of time that we engage with, which is the fact that it is not as it should be.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even time is experiencing the effects of the fall of sin, even though it's a part of God's creation, because all creation is groaning.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean to be a good steward of our time?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to use our limited days well?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says in Ephesians, he says we are to make the most of the time by being wise.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, like a lot of things, it's straightforward, right?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do we use our time in the best way that we can?
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: How do we use our time in the limited amount that we have?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: How do we use our time as so many things are vying for it and pulling on us in all directions?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do we keep a priority so that the way that we spend our days is worthy of the day that the Lord has given to us?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's a book called Um Uh 4,000 Weeks, Time Management for Mortals.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a Christian book, but it begins this way, and I think it kind of illuminates the problem.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody needs telling there isn't enough time.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we're deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But such techniques often end up making things worse.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem, the challenge of how best to use our 4,000 weeks.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is 4,000 weeks?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is how many weeks you have if you live to be just about 80 years old.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that some people don't make that mark.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some people get more than 4,000 weeks.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: But every single one of us has an allotted amount of time that only God knows.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: He knows when I'm going to be gone, and I don't.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that, I need to act in a way as if I might be gone tomorrow.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the other guardrail that we lean into, is that there is based upon the way the Bible describes our lives, there's a sense of urgency that is to be applied to them because of our finite time.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: See, the thing that is so important about our lives is that we are supposed to engage with this plan that God has.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the student ministry, uh, before we would go on mission trips, specifically the ones where we did only evangelism to New York City, we would have the kids read uh this book called The One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven, right?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the one thing you can't do in heaven is share the gospel with people, okay?
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things you can do in heaven.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be fantastic.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Really looking forward to it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but the thing that you can't do is tell other people how they can get there.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is where the urgency comes in, is that we have a duty, right?
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have a command, a great commission that's been given to us, and we have a limited amount of time to carry it out.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul says, uh, continuing, right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: In Colossians 4, 5, act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, both Ephesians and Colossians, uh, the most uh the two most recent passages here, both of them were written by Paul while he was in prison.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Both of them were written while Paul was in chains.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul was unable to do while he was in chains was visit all the churches and all the people that he had helped come to faith in Christ, right?
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, the greatest evangelist the world has ever known, was unable to leave house arrest, effectively is what he was under most of the time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And he was stuck in one location.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so what did he do to make the best use of his time?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote most of the New Testament, right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote most of the letters that we have because he was acting wisely, making the most of this time.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this sort of presents our two uh guardrails, I think.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: One in that we think of time on this eternal perspective from how God is using and working within time and carrying out his divine plan.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also look at our finite lives, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: How fleeting they can be, and we understand that there's a level of urgency there.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we have trust in the plan that is being carried out far that is started far before us and will continue far beyond us, most likely.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then we also have a sense of urgency for the part that we have to play in God's plan at this moment in time.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible presents time which is as something which should deeply affect human behavior because of all of these things, yet also time is something that doesn't hinder God's ability to work.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what does it look like to balance these things?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the uh the book of Ecclesiastes in chapter three gives us some instruction.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, as we go there, I want you to just think about what it means to balance and live within these two sort of boundaries that the gospel and the Bible has provided for us.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me, Ecclesiastes 3, verses 1 through 8.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what Solomon writes There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven, a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, to weep.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To laugh, to mourn, to dance, to throw stones and to gather stones, to embrace and a time to avoid embracing, to search, and a time to count as lost, a time to keep and a time to throw away, to tear and to sow, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Solomon, the third king of Israel, right, was first of all speaking to a people who were often enmeshed in war.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so the number of times that you're reading here about throwing stones or killing or going to war, okay, this is not literally applied to every single situation that you're in.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to go to war, okay?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what he is saying is that there's a season for all things.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those items that he presents, they counter each other, right?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: A time to be born and a time to die is about as expansive as we can get in our lives.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: We start at one end and we finish at the other.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And everything else in between, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to embrace, a time to avoid embracing, all the things that are present here.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is that there is a time for all seasons.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so what this does is it injects a measure of patience into our lives, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where we're balancing the eternal nature of God, working out all things in his perfect timing, along with the fact that we don't have a lot of time to be working it out.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Solomon says there is a time for it all.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you are probably going through these different times as well.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a time for sickness and a time for health, a time for joy, a time for pain.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Life is going to be filled with all of these different elements, and as we sort of move from one into the next, we should have an expectation that we will go through the different seasons of life, that we shouldn't uh unnecessarily rush through one, but also that we shouldn't languish in one either, that God has all things appointed for a purpose.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as we're doing that, and we're balancing the divine and the eternal with the sort of temporal and the finite, this is what comes out is balance.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon continues through verse 15, and he says, What does the worker gain from his struggles?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: He has made everything appropriate in its time.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: He has also put eternity in their hearts.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know that there is nothing better for them to than to rejoice and enjoy the good life.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: It is also the gift of God whenever anyone eats, drinks, and enjoys all his efforts.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know that everything God does will last forever.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: There is no adding to it or taking from it.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: God works so that people will be in awe of him.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever is has already been, and whatever will be, already is.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: However, God seeks justice for the persecuted.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as he sort of concludes this main thought, right, you can see each sentence is like it sort of contrasts the other.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, God's plans are eternal, and yet we're a part of them, and nothing can be changed, and yet everything is important.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, right at the very end there, what that sort of almost obscure sentence, whatever is has already been, whatever will be already is, and then yet the very present, however, God seeks justice for the persecuted.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: He just keeps going back and forth, and what I think we can picture him doing here is sort of like you know, a little kid that is learning to ride their bike and they teeter back and forth, going from one side to the other.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: He's slowly balancing us as we head down the middle.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: As we try to keep both guardrails in view, right?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the eternal nature of God, the eternal plan of God.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: What that does is it brings us comfort.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: It brings us comfort because we understand that he's in control.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Hop over out of the driver's seat.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's the one who is running the show, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who has worked all things out, who has saved mankind, right, and who is going to bring about the end of all things and the ultimate defeat of Satan and evil.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Going to resurrect everyone, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who have trusted in Christ.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these are the things that God is doing.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have no power to affect that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, frankly, there is a peace that comes that no matter how far or how badly we mess up, we don't ruin his plan.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God, you know?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then no matter how fantastic or how useful we become to his kingdom or how whatever metric you want to use, whatever success we have, there's still no MVP award that we get when we get to heaven because we are joining in a plan that also counts the likes of Abraham, Moses, uh, David, Jesus.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, right, you aren't going to get there and they're gonna be like, you know what, we couldn't have done it without you.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: So thankful we had you on the field.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: You threw that past, man.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: God is saying, no, man, I love you.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm faithful from generation to generation, a refuge from children to grandchildren, right?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, he is the one that is working all things out.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a level of comfort that comes here, right?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we also, and so because of that, what I want to say is we push back against those who think, right, that the world can be conquered in a day, those who live with such anxiety to think that if it doesn't happen in a week or a month that it's failed, that they don't have any sort of patience because they don't think of eternity.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: As Solomon says here, God has put eternity in our hearts.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is an, though we can't fully understand it, there is an aspect of God being above time that draws us in.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think of eternity, though we can't comprehend it, there is a joy that fills us when we consider what it must be like to no longer experience the ravages of time.
• 28:06
  unknown: Right?
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's put eternity in our hearts.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is something that we can be drawn towards.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: We understand that it goes above where we're at now.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: But this also fights against the effect of going too far there, one of laziness that says, Well, God's in control.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's sovereign, right?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's got it all in his hands.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: He does.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: But you're supposed to be a part of it too.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you have a finite amount of time to be a part of that plan.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's this process of looking beyond our own lives and into the eternal nature and plans of God that gives us a peace in this life.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even though we are mist, we are smoke, we are dew, we are whatever.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is looking ahead to God's eternal perspective that gives us hope.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is what C.S.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis says in Mere Christianity about this.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not, as some modern people think, a form of escapism or wishful thinking.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the things a Christian is meant to do.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you read history, you will find that Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Aim at earth and you will get neither.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's this understanding of our relationship to time and God being outside of it that helps us move forward.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think of one last thing, though.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to think of what it meant for God.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Think of all the Psalms we've talked about them, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Generation to generation, unaffected by time, right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like me walking through a spider web in the forest, right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that was the way those were the paths that the spider could walk upon, and I was walking on an entirely different path, and also found out how many spider webs were in the forest.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um tall people can relate, anyhow.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: But as God is moving forward, he isn't constrained by the things that constrain us yet.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now think to Jesus Christ.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Think about what it means, just in this, there's so many things.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Think about just in the matter of time, what it meant for the God, the everlasting eternity to eternity God, to pick a date and time that he is going to be born to take on human flesh and to grow.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's this uh concept that's presented in the book of Philippians about the humility that God had to endure by becoming Christ, okay?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: That the everlasting bec taking on the flesh of humanity that is finite, and then having to basically play by the rules of the world.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he is God, and no, I'm not being a heretic, but just think for a moment of what it means for the everlasting to become thirty or fifteen or be a baby, and for the everlasting God to have to be cared for and all of the humility that was involved in being present in our time.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that one of the reasons that God came and took on flesh as Jesus Christ is so that he might be able to relate to us.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not that God couldn't relate to us previously, okay, but that by becoming Christ and doing all of the things that we experience, we might be able to relate to him better than before because he is not far off and distant.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: He has experienced our trials, he has experienced all seasons loss, joy, pain, sickness, happiness, friendship, broken heart, all of these things God experienced by being on a timeline.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it is also a theme when you read the Gospels that Jesus would say, certainly as he was approaching Jerusalem, he'd say, My time has not yet come.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is not yet a time for me.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: He talked a lot about time, in fact.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: He talked a lot about the time to come and a time that would be here when he would return, but he was also referencing something that would happen in his lifetime.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then when he gets to the cross at the perfect time, at the divinely appointed time, when he's dying on that cross, he gives up his spirit and he says, it is finished.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was the time for him to give up his life so that the world might benefit and experience eternity because of his blood.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think about our relationship to time and what it means, right, we have to balance these two things together.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we live in time, but we are also a part of a plan that is above and goes beyond the time that we experience.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so honestly, you say, well, what can I do to be a part of that?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, right now, what we're doing is we're running with the baton.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: We've got it in our hand.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's been handed off to us by a previous generation, and as we continue to run forward, one of two things will happen.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Either Jesus returns and we hand the baton to him, or we hand it off to the next leg of the race.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: As we continue to be a part of this plan.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the question that you have to ask yourself is am I handling my time with wisdom?
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing the things that God has called me to do?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Not with anxiety, but with a respect for the fact that my time is limited.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: That I may very well get to 4,000 weeks, but I might get to 2,000.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Only he does.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we going to do with that time?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So here I'm gonna step off the stage uh for a time of reflection as we move into the Lord's table.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to think about is not only Christ, right, and what it meant for God to be with us in time as the person, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, but also your relationship to time.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Are you spending it well?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are your priorities in the right place?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you anxious and need to think more about God's eternal plan?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you perhaps need to kick it into high gear, thinking more about the urgency?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: How might you use these guardrails to better balance your life and understand that we are within time with God?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna step off in here in a moment.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'll come back and we'll take the Lord's table together.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body which is for you.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: In the same way also he took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we fall at your feet.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: As Moses said, you who are enthroned forever and ever.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we fall at your feet as people who are finite and broken and often have a very hard relationship with time.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because Lord, we see all the effects of it on our world.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, we also understand that you have given us time as a gift so that we might carry out your will.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we pray, Lord, that we would do it to the best of our abilities.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: God, not becoming too anxious or too calm, but Lord, understanding that you have placed eternity in our hearts so that we might tell other people about it.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you for Jesus Christ, what it meant for you to take on flesh, to experience time in a way that you never did before.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, so that we might understand you better, relate to you as our Savior, because God, you have walked the road that many of us have walked.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so, God, I pray that as we think about all these things and we take the cup, and we take the bread, and we remember the time when you are coming, Lord, we might rejoice that in your eternal plan you have already won.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: And God, we are simply waiting for that moment.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And until then, God, give us strength, give us courage, give us endurance to run the race that you have called us for.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, everybody.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.