Biblical Truths about Redeeming the time

Let’s look at the Bible to see what it says. The term Redeeming Your Time comes from the book of Ephesians. After teaching about the Gospel of Grace in chapters 1-4, Paul reminds us of our status as dearly loved children of God in Eph 5:1

Ephesians 5:1 NLT

1 Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.

What should our response be to our status as dearly loved children of God? Paul will answer the question a few verses later.

Ephesians 5:15–17 NLT

15 So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17 Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Make the most of every opportunity = redeem the time.

Ephesians 5:15–17 NKJV

15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Paul is saying that part of our response to the Gospel is to make the most of every opportunity or to redeem our time which means that

We are to manage our time as carefully and wisely as possible.

The Greek word for Redeem or “make the most of every opportunity is

Redeem - exagorazo means to buy up or ransom

If you ever said I wish I could by more time … that’s the idea here. As Christians we are called to buy up as much time as we can.

Why? Not so we can spend more time on selfish or self centered pursuits. We are told to redeem our time because the days are evil and we are running out of time to do what the Lord wants us to do. he is coming back soon.

So, how do we redeem or make the best use of our time?

We will look at different aspects to that over the coming weeks by studying how Jesus used his time. As you read and study the Gospels, Jesus was the most productive person to ever walk the earth. We will look at his life and what he did to manage his time, as counter culture as he was, and see how we can apply those principles to our own lives.

Let’s look at our passage of the day.

Luke 8:22–23 NLT

22 One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and started out. 23 As they sailed across, Jesus settled down for a nap. But soon a fierce storm came down on the lake. The boat was filling with water, and they were in real danger.

The disciples are out on the Sea of Galilee with Jesus… just out for a nice afternoon boat ride. The water is nice, the wind is calm and Jesus falls asleep. The all o f a sudden things got crazy and the wind picked up and soon they were in a storm and the boat was taking on water. Can you imagine being out in the middle of the lake, and you are bailing out water as fast as you can? That’s what they were doing and it wasn’t working. Kind of like a never ending to do list.

Recognizing that they cold not fix it, they could not calm the storm and they were sinking, the woke up Jesus and begged him to help.

Luke 8:24 NLT

24 The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves. Suddenly the storm stopped and all was calm.

Here is the point.

Jesus offers peace before you do anything

That’s radical. Culture says that we are to work… work… work. We live in a works based culture. It says if you do x+y+z you will find peace. But thats opposite of what Jesus taught. Jesus taught a grace based productivity. Here is what that means. Jesus gives us peace and we do the time management work out of worship.

Look at the disciples in the boat. They didn’t do anything to calm the storm or fix the situation. They trusted Jesus to calm the storm. And you and I can do the same.

By trusting Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins, we have peace with God.

Romans 5:1 NLT

1 Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.

We are no longe enemies of God. here is the good news. That peace with God is because of what Jesus did not because of what you or I did.

someone said,

Peace comes first, not second.

The mistake we too often make is thinking that peace is a result of the things we do instead of the source of the things we do.

Good time management tactics will never be the source of your peace. As Christians, our ultimate source of peace, our ultimate solution to being swamped, if found in Jesus, the SOG, sleeping in the back of the boat. Like Paul said in Eph 2:14

Ephesians 2:14 NLT

14 For Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us.

So now since we have established that we are part of God’s family, if we have received Jesus, we want to manage our time better. Let’s look

How to manage Your Time Better

1. Our longing for productivity is good and God given.

We don’t just want to live forever, we want to be productive forever. We may not feel that way every day because sin made work difficult.

But something inside us and Gods word shows us that work was mean tot be very good.

Genesis 2:15 NLT

15 The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it.

Tend or work - Avodah is also translated worship. Work pre0dated sin. So work was meant to be good. Work was actually meant to be worship.

I believe that the desire to live and be productive forever was placed in us by God. Look at what Solomon said in Ecc 3:11

Ecclesiastes 3:11 NLT

11 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.

Something in our God given DNA tells us that we were made for something more. We work with time that our minds tell us is finite, but our souls tell us is infinite. So why is time finite?

Glad you asked.

2. Sin has ensured that we will all die with unfinished work.

When sin entered the world, death came in with it.

Genesis 3:17–19 NLT

17 And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. 19 By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”

You can also see it in 1 CO 15:21

1 Corinthians 15:21 NLT

21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man.

Humans were created to be immortal but became mortal because of sin. work was created to be good, but became difficult because of sin. Time which was originally created to be infinite, became finite because of sin. Sin has fixed it to where none of us will completely feel like we have completed everything we dreamed of doing.

Are you depressed yet? Our to-do list will never be completed. Wow. There will be a gap between what we imagined getting done and what we actually get done… because of sin.

Thankfully, sin doesn’t win… sin doesn’t have the final say.

3. God will finish the work that he wants finished.

God created us to live forever, but sin made us mortal, time-bound and finite.

Where is our hope? Our hope is in Jesus, who walked out of a tomb on that first Easter with a redeemed body that could not be destroyed again. The resurrection was Jesus declaring that the longing to live forever we have in us, was put there by him. He restored immortality.

Easter is not just the beginning of eternal life, but the beginning of God’s eternal kingdom. What does that have to do with time management?

God created us to live and work with him in a perfect garden. Sin messed everything up, but God promised to send a King to set everything right. With his defeat of death on Easter, Jesus proved emphatically that He is that promised King. And everything from that moment to the end of Revelation is about the building of God’s kingdom until Jesus returns to finish what he inaugurated at the resurrection and make “all things new”

Revelation 21:5 NLT

5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”

What does this mean today? Look at 1 CO 15:58

1 Corinthians 15:58 NLT

58 So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless.

1 Corinthians 3:9 NLT

9 For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.

We are God’s co-workers. God created a lot in six days, but what’s equally remarkable is what He did not create. The first few days of creation was God setting up a canvas. The sixth day is when He passed the baton of creation to us—His image-bearers—and called us to continue the work… (literally, to “fill the earth”) with things that point to his glory.

The same thing happened on Easter Sunday morning. Jesus inaugurated his kingdom with his resurrection, but left the work of building up the kingdom to us until he returns and finishes it. New testament scholar NT Wright said,

God always wanted to work in His world through loyal human beings.

Look at this. God will finish the work. Not us. God will redeem the world and create a new heaven and earth. That should set you free. God doesn’t need you to complete your “to-do list” to complete His work. He will complete his work.

Ultimately, there is no such thing as unfinished work if God desires that work to be finished. Whatever God wants completed will be completed. That’s a liberating truth and it leads to this...

4. The Gospel is our source of rest and ambition

As we have seen, God doesn’t need us to be productive, but if we are honest, we often need ourselves to be productive in order to feel a sense of self-worth.

Knowing that we are forgiven and part of God’s family, frees us to be productive for the Lord. There is a big difference between working in an effort to gain someone’s favor and working in response to unconditional favor of God. It’s highly motivating.

So what is God’s agenda? How can we work to redeem the time? Look at Eph 2:10

Ephesians 2:10 NLT

10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Matthew 5:16 NLT

16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

The good works in the passages doesn’t just refer to our Christian good deeds. It actually mean work… employment… or task.

Work was part of God’s perfect creation and plan prior to the Fall of Man, and Jesus reaffirmed the goodness of what many see as secular work by spending most of his life working as a carpenter. As long as your work is not contrary to God’s word, it’s considered good work.

So as we work, where can we look for ways to use our time wisely?

5. We can know how God would manage His time.

When the creater and author of the world and time became flesh in John 1:14

John 1:14 NLT

14 So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

He became fully human while remaining fully God. He experienced the same day to day challenges the rest of us face. He had a business to manage, a mother to support, younger siblings to help raise, hunger to manage… the need for sleep… just like any of us. On the human side, Jesus had to steward his time on earth just like we do today.

You can see this in the Gospels.

John 9:4 NLT

4 We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work.

John 17:4 NLT

4 I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Now you may think that Jesus day and time can’t compare with today. He didn’t have iPhones, etc. He didn’t have the distractions that we have today so surely it was easier to manage his time that it would be today?

But you can see it time after time. Jesus was constantly interrupted. He was constantly having to make choices about his priorities and say no to people.

As Heb 4:15

Hebrews 4:15 NLT

15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin.

As Heb 4:15 says, Jesus experienced everything we experience so he understand our situation. He understands our efforts to redeem our time.

Conclusion

In the coming weeks, we will look at several principles that sho us how Jesus made the most of his time so that we can make the most of our time. Today, I want to leave you with this.

Start with the Word.

To know how to make the most of your time, you have to know the author of time, His purposes for the world, and what he wants us to do with the time he has given to us. So if you have not, begin a Quiet time tomorrow.

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