Redeeming the Time

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word, providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. And we're starting a new series today called Time, Talent, and Treasure. Time, Talent, and Treasure. And this is a generosity series, a stewardship series, if you want to call it that.

And if that stewardship word kind of throws you off, it's just a churchy term for managing our resources. God has blessed us with so much as believers. It's important for us to manage our resources for His kingdom and for His glory. We say it around here, God gets the first and the best, and we trust Him with the rest. Amen?

He gets the first and the best, so we use this term called first fruits. And we try to revisit this every year, especially coming into the Thanksgiving and Christmas season when we're thinking about generosity and giving and what God wants us to do with our resources. As believers, as followers of Christ, what does God do with our, you know, what do we do with our resources? How do we handle our resources for His glory and for our betterment? And it's, before we were believers, we think different about resources.

Amen? I mean, we think it's about, you know, what I can get and what I can handle. But when you become a believer in Christ, something changes inside of us. It transforms us. And when we align with His word, we want to become more like Him, and we want to listen to Him.

And there's something special about that. When we begin to honor Him and align with His word and do what He says to do, we start experiencing grace after grace after grace in our lives. And God uses us to work for His kingdom, to pursue His kingdom purposes. What does kingdom mean? It means He is the King, we are His children, and we're extending the kingdom of God.

That's what we're called to do on this earth. And the only way God is capable of doing it, well, God is capable of doing it anyway. I don't want to take away His sovereignty. Let me backtrack a little bit there. But God has decided to do that through the church.

Amen? He's decided to do that with our resources. So when we give, when we put in the offering plate, when we give to our neighbor that is hurting, or sick, or even our time, the time and the talent we put into things is all for the glory of the kingdom of God. And He uses it. Our time, our treasure, our talent, our toys, and all those things.

Well, for the next few weeks, we're going to talk about those things. And this week, I think, is a really important subject, and it's about time. Time, you ain't no friend of mine. How many of you would agree with that at times? You know, I don't feel like time is a friend of mine.

In 1974, Harry Chapman's Cats in the Cradle hit number one on the Billboard charts. Now, I'm too young to remember it, and I didn't hear that song until I was a teenager and kind of fell in love with the song. But there is something about the mix of lyrics and the melody that is very sobering. If you listen to the lyrics of the song and what he is singing about, it's really about regret and wasted time and the importance of spending time in the right things and in the right places. And what is even more sobering about the poem or the song is that it was written based on Harry's wife, Sandy's poem.

And it ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy. The song was released in the year his son, Josh, was born. And when Josh was seven, Harry was performing about 200 concerts a year. He was very popular in that time. And his wife, Sandy, asked him when he was going to take time for the family.

And Harry said, okay, after the end of the summer, I will take off the time and I will spend it. But he never made it to the end of the summer because July 16, 1981, as he was driving on the Long Island Expressway truck hit his Volkswagen Rabbit and his life came to an end on this earth. That truth is all of our lives are going to end at some point. We don't know when the truth is that we are going to come to some place where it's the end of our lives. And the greatest evaluation of our lives will be how we spend our time and our talent and our treasure.

It was Dallas Willard who said, I don't know of any answer to busyness other than solitude or tragedy. Most people, unfortunately, experience that through tragedy. But my hope today is I can do this through a message and help you and help us understand the importance of resourcing our time, the time that God has given us. And the title of this message is Redeeming the Time. If you could turn to 2 Thessalonians 3.

11, if you have your Bible or if you just want to follow along in your notes, that's fine. Or up here on the screens. And we're going to go through this together. And I think this is kind of a scripture that really hits home in the time category. And it says this in beginning with verse 11.

We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy. They are busy bodies, meaning they are busy with the things that don't really matter. They're busy doing things that aren't really advancing things in God's kingdom and his church. And it says in verse 12, such people we command and urge the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.

And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of what is good. What is good. Very encouraging thought there. Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instructions in this letter. Do not associate with them in order that they may feel ashamed.

Now, in context, that sounds like kind of bad, but really it's about helping them understand and being convicted about the things they're doing. Yeah, do not regard them as an enemy. So he kind of backtracks there. But don't regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer. Now, the word idle kind of brings up a lot of thoughts, a lot of things, a number of things.

Some. Some. You may say, well, if I think of an idle person, I think of somebody who's lazy, who's careless, who doesn't have a direction in life, sitting around, doing nothing. But in the truest sense, the word being idle is undisciplined. Undisciplined.

Being undisciplined. And I think there are two kinds of people in the world. There are those who make things happen, and those who let things happen. And an idle person is those who just kind of floats through life, just letting things happen, just living by default as opposed to design. And there's an old saying that we're all familiar with, idle hands are the devil's workshop.

I mean, we've heard it said to us, we've heard it said around us. And in our idleness, we open the door to temptation, because I think there's a real truth in that. And we open the door to the enemy, and for him to come in and make some use of the time that is meant for God's purposes. So there's some truth in that statement. And if you are going to, let me just use a very practical example of time management.

If you are going to get in shape physically, you can't be idle, can you? If you are going to train for a marathon, let's say, you know, a K, a 5, 10K marathon, whatever it is, if you're training for that, you're not going to be idle with that. You're going to be very disciplined. You're going to be disciplined in your life. You're going to eat right.

You're going to run. You're going to exercise. You're going to eat the right things, right? You're going to focus on maybe mentally you want to be right. You want to sleep well.

You want to get prepared. You want to spend months ahead of time getting prepared for what is to come, right? Well, in the same way, we need to be disciplined in our time and our talents and our treasures because we can be unhealthy mentally, spiritually in those disciplines as well. And if you don't control your calendar, and you've heard people say this, you've probably heard this term over and over again. If you don't control your calendar, it will control you.

And so many times we allow our calendars to control our life. In other words, if you aren't disciplined in the way that you're using your time, just as if you aren't disciplined in the way you're spending your money and the way you are doing other things, you go into debt, right? If you're not disciplining your money, you go into debt. Well, there's time debt that we can create in the same way. We need to discipline our time.

And hopefully by the time we are done, you are stewarding that properly. You are stewarding your money properly as well. Some of you are probably, I don't even store up my money properly. Well, hopefully we can help you with that in the coming weeks. Next week, we're going to talk about money and we're going to spend two weeks on money as generosity and things like that.

We're going to look in those areas of helping others and what we are to do for the kingdom of God. And I think it's going to be really beneficial for us. So Paul says, they are not busy, but they are busy bodies, busy bodies. That term busy bodies in the context of the Greek language means to busy oneself with useless and needless matters, okay? In other words, the Thessalonians are majoring on the minors and minoring on the majors.

They were dealing, they were having fights, and they were talking among themselves about things that didn't really matter, and they were missing the point of what they were supposed to be doing. They were minoring on the majors and majoring on the minors. Of course, Tim Boone once said, if the devil can't make you bad, he can make you busy. And he does that, doesn't he? If he can't get you on that area, he's going to put things in your life to distract you from his purpose.

And life is a constant battle. Is it not, I mean, between the urgent and the important, and the urgent being those things that demand our attention, and the important are those things that actually deserve our attention. So we deal with urgent things all the time, but are those urgent things important? I know for me, that's kind of something I deal with. You know, I got to get something knocked out right away, and my wife has to pull me to the side sometimes when things come in, and I'm working on something important, and something comes in.

Well, I got to deal with this. I got to deal with this. No, you don't have to deal with this right now. You need to focus on that, because that's more important right now. And sometimes we get caught with the urgent versus the important, and we need to prioritize those things.

Stephen Covey wrote a book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. And habit number three was put first things first. So it's really about prioritizing things. And he said this, anything less than a conscious commitment to the important is a unconscious commitment to the unimportant. So other words, if I choose to say yes to something, then I'm saying no to something else.

Or if I choose to say no to something, I'm saying yes to something else. So if you aren't consciously committed to important things, then you are unconsciously committing yourself to unimportant things. So I look at this scripture in Luke 8, and I've never saw it from this context before. And this is the story of Legion. How many of you know the story of Legion, or at least heard if you're not in church or been a part of church, you've heard Legion.

I mean, Legion is one of those names that's out there. And what Legion means, and obviously the story is about a demon-possessed man with a, they say, 6,000 demons. And there's debates of whether he had 6,000 demons in or they were 6,000 personalities. But the demon or the devil or the spirit called himself, I am Legion. I'm Legion.

My name is Legion when Jesus called out to him. So the word Legion was a military regiment consisting of about 6,000 Roman soldiers. So typically we understand that story as casting out demons. But I heard someone else interpret this in another way. Elizabeth O'Connor wrote an interpretation of this in which the name is Legion is a plight for us all.

And she says this, she was saying that you might not be possessed by 6,000 demons, but does anybody feel pulled in 6,000 directions? Does anyone feel 6,000 voices kind of enter their head and distract? Or there's 6,000 things to do, or there's 6,000 regrets in our life, or maybe there's 6,000 worries that we deal with, so everybody struggles with legion in some way, shape, and form. It may not be a demon, but there is certainly some time management issues that need to take place in our lives, amen? And it keeps us from the things that God has for us, and if we genuinely believe that God created time, and God gifted us with time, and He numbers our days, and every day is a gift from Him, why wouldn't we value the resource of time?

Why wouldn't we want to resource our time in a way that was beneficial for the kingdom, for God, and for us, and take it very seriously? Matthew 6, 33, we all know this, seek first His kingdom, and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Now, I want to say something here. I love our church. I think we have a wonderful church, and a lot of you are seeking God with all of your heart, but I wonder how many of us are seeking Him first, if we are being honest.

Are we seeking Him first, or are we seeking things first? Here's what my concern is. It is that some of us are seeking Him second, third, tenth, and on and on, almost as if we are working out a deal, you know? Like, I'll seek you first, God, if you honor me here. I'll seek you first, God, if you meet this goal in my life.

I'll seek you, but I need to know where we're going first, and instead of, in true faith, honoring Him and say, I seek you first, because we like the all these things part. That's great. God, give me these things, and then I'll seek you first. But that's not how that works. It says, seek first His kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you.

And God, if you get me here, I will seek you first. And this is about making sure that we are doing everything, or you are doing everything you are doing for the glory of God. And at the fundamental level, seeking God means making Him the first thing. Like, at the beginning of the day, are we making Him first at the beginning of the day? How many days do we start off?

I know when I start off my day with Him first, things tend to fall in place. And if I'm giving Him first things, I also can't help but wonder if it means that we don't spend more time seeking God than other things. Like, if we believe that we're going to be in heaven one day and with Him all the time, why don't we want to be with Him on earth? There's a contradiction there. And I don't know anybody that doesn't need some recalibration of time management.

I think this is going to be really, really good to see, you know, to assess ourselves. So, we're going to look at this, and the psalmist says this in 46.10, Be still and know that I am God. And if you are not still, you might be too busy. Did you know that?

If you are still, if you are not still before the Lord, you might be too busy. And if you are trying to be too busy, you might be doing too much. Then you are playing God. If you are trying to do too much, you are playing God. And if you are trying to play God, you are going to be burnt out and burned in general.

There's a trajectory that takes place here. When we get busy, we try to be God. When we try to be God, we burn out. And we're good for nothing. So, time management is very important.

There's a book called Annum Cara that was written by John O'Donohue, who is a priest, an Irish priest. And the story in this book, I think it's a very interesting story. I don't even know where these explorers were going. But he shared a story about an explorer in Africa who hired these hands to get him to a specific place. And after about three days of hiking, they stopped.

And the guy who hired him was like, okay, why are we stopping? He says, we can't go any further. He says, why? And they said this, we moved too quickly to reach here. Now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us.

Isn't that so true? Sometimes we move so quick that we need time to stop and give our spirits time to catch up. Be still. That's why, God, I think that's kind of the formula for us. Be still.

Sometimes we just need to be still and know who God is. Know that I am God. He wants you to know that he is. He wants to minister to you. He wants to help you get to where you're going.

So we talked a lot about the problem, but how about some solution? And I want to give you five things this morning that I think can help with time management. Very, very proud. I love the Bible because it's so practical and it gives us so much help in these areas. So as we talk about time as a resource, let's look at what God can give us today and what the Holy Spirit is showing us.

The first thing you need to do if you want to manage and resource your time better is you need to say no more often. You need to say no more often. This is a really hard thing for me. I mean, I can't. It's hard for me to say no.

To say no more often. And some of you may not have a problem saying no. Maybe you say no too much. And we're not dealing with you today, but for most people that are like me, it's really, really hard to say no. And I believe the word no is the key to overcoming this tendency to do too much.

I think we are busy bodies because we can't say no to anybody or anything. I believe it was Andy Stanley that said it like this. Saying yes to one thing is saying no to something else. Kind of talked about that a little earlier. So let's bring this down to the practical life.

If I take every meeting that everybody asks me to take, then I will be so busy that it would rob me of some of the good things that I could be doing. Such as spending time with my children, spending time with my family, getting healthy in those ways. And yet I struggle with saying no and I feel like a bad person. But what I've learned is that if I say yes to something, I have to say no to something else. And you need to know your priorities.

I think it's important that we put priorities in place. What are the most important? Things in our life. And that's not easy to do because if your schedule is out of control you need to treat time like money and you need to budget your time. You need to sit down and budget your time.

You need to get with your spouse. You need to get by yourself or what have you and say okay let me look at my time. How am I using my time? And as I said before if you don't budget your time you're going to go in debt with your time. You're going to lose time.

And if your schedule is out of control that's something you need to do. You need to set some priorities in order. Okay. What is most important? What is urgent and what is important?

What am I spending all my time doing that maybe I shouldn't be spending all my time doing? And begin to budget that out. Where am I? Okay. God obviously is most important in my life.

And then my family is second. My spouse is second. And my kids. And then and then you You need to set those things out. You need to set those things out.

Whatever they may be for you. And begin to budget your time like you do money so that you don't go in debt to your time. And I like one of my favorite concepts is you need to make some pre-decisions. Pre-decisions. And I know it's really hard to say no to people.

But if you have some pre-decisions already laid out. Like this is this is what I can do. And this is what I can't do. Then it's easy to say no. No.

I just can't do that right now. It's not where I am right now. I believe it was Andy Stanley that shared at a conference I was at one time. Pastor Andy Stanley of North Point Ministries said that when his kids were younger he and his wife made some pre-decisions about how they would spend their time. And he was invited.

He's being a world-renowned speaker conference speaker or what have you. While his kids were young they chose not to do any speaking engagements outside of what their ministry was doing during that period of time. So for a season they said no. When he was called to be able to speak somewhere. You know some awesome opportunities.

He made a decision. No I'm not going to take that engagement right now. Of course you know politely he would say man that sounds like an awesome opportunity. But right now in this stage of my life I just have to say no to it. I have to say no to it.

Now that his kids are older and now the house he travels and does that a lot more with his wife and has a lot of ministry opportunities. But we need to make some pre-decisions. That's just a perfect example of making some pre-decisions in our life. And when we make those pre-decisions God's going to test us at those pre-decisions. Because you're going to be asked to do some things that aren't really in your wheelhouse or in your schedule.

Or aren't helpful or resourceful for your ministry and your life and your family. So you need to make those decisions and you need to stick to it. The second thing that we need to do is leave a margin. Leave a margin. If you get too busy you will lose the capacity of awe.

You will lose the capacity of gratitude. You will lose the capacity for creativity. You will lose the capacity for vision for your life. And most importantly the spontaneity of the Holy Spirit will disappear from your life. If you don't leave margins in your time.

You make time for priorities. Do you? Not? Do we not all? If we have priorities in our life.

We make time for those things. If we again going back to the marathon. If we are. If a marathon is a priority for our life. If that's a big goal.

We are going to set aside time to train. To eat well. To exercise and do those things. And you need to make time for those things. Those priorities in your life that are very important.

So you're going to prioritize automatically what's most important. So the question is what is the most important? And I need to make margin for those things. And I think all of us have what we call black holes in our lives. And what do I mean that?

When you think of a black hole you think of something that eats matter. Right? It just eats things. It eats matter. I don't know.

Maybe there's some scientists in here that are going to correct me on that. But when I think of a black hole I think, you know, dissolving matter. And things being sucked into a vortex. And all of us have places in our lives, I believe, like that. Where time is eaten.

Where money is eaten. Maybe some of that is social media. Maybe some of that is television. Maybe some of that is even working out or whatever it might be. Some of that is taking your time.

It's taking your energy. And it's taking your money. And you have to identify where those black holes in your lives are so that you can manage the time better. The third thing we need to do is redeem the time. Redeem the time.

And the title of this message was Redeem the Time. And Ephesians 5.16 says this, make the most of every opportunity. Make the most of every opportunity. The King James Version actually uses the word redeem the time.

So when we identify those black holes in our life, those things that are sucking our time and money, how do we redeem those things? How do we take those things back? An example for me, I wear primarily two hats. I have a lot more like small hats and things like that. But my two primary hats are pastor church planter.

That's who I am there. And the second hat I wear is husband and father. Husband and father, family man. So I have to redeem the time for these two things. Because what can happen is I can easily get worked up in being a pastor, a church planter, and taking on all that it has and honoring everybody's time commitments and things like that and forget about some things that are very important in my life.

And I might even miss out on some really God opportunities. So how do I redeem the time? Here's just a perfect example of that. I, right now, am a lot of weekends, I'll go set up signs on the weekends. And you got the flags out here and the flags out on the highway.

We know we've kind of rotated those in and out. But somehow it just came back to Pastor Leon putting out the signs on the weekend again. And I don't know how that happened, but I'm there again. And so I go out and I put some signs up on the roads and things like that because we want people to kind of see our church. And that's a part of our ministry.

And many of you are here because you saw a sign out on the highway. And we put the flags out and things like that. Well, the weekend is very important. it. For my kids and my wife because she's off.

So how do I redeem that time? Well, one of those things I do is I take Savannah, my daughter, with me because she wants daddy-daughter time. She loves daddy-daughter time. In fact, we went out on a daddy-daughter date last night, you know, and kind of hung out and ate sushi. And yeah, my five-year-old loves sushi.

Not raw sushi, but she likes certain types of sushi. But when we're out, I redeemed the time by having daddy-daughter time and we make a game of it. We go out and have fun putting up signs and she'll ride around. I'll be in my car and we'll like play a game and we just spend good quality time together. Now, I could leave her at home and just get it done a lot quicker and then come back home or whatever.

But what I'm doing is I'm redeeming the time. I'm redeeming the time I have with my daughter. And I think that's important that when we identify those black holes in our lives, those things that are sucking, like how can I redeem the time I'm spending on television when I've been watching my favorite show or when I spend all that. Now, this is a big, we live in like a technological age. So when I see what's going on in our culture and I look around, even when I'm in the restaurant, you know, there was one day I was in the restaurant and I looked over at a family and I'm like, oh, that's nice.

A family, they're eating together, there's about six or seven of them. And all of them are on their phones, you know, like they're on their phones and they're not even looking at each other. Even worse, there was a, there was a teenage, two teenage girls that came in one day and I noticed they were, they were kind of sitting over at the table and they were looking at their phone. They were hanging out, but they were looking at their phones. And then they started laughing at each other.

And what I discovered is that they were actually text conversation, stating each other at the table instead of having like a real conversation across the table. They were texting back and forth from the table. You see what we got going on here? And I'm thinking, man, the time we spend on things like this, rather than the time, things that we could redeem that time on things that really matter, like true relationships. And so often we find ourselves in places like this.

Number four, we need to give the Lord his time. We need to give the Lord his time. Give God his time. What do I mean by that? This is kind of a first fruits thing, kind of piggybacking on what I was talking about early.

And we do live in a technologically paced culture rather than an agriculturally paced Bible kind of context. If we read the Bible, we understand that it was more agriculturally driven and there was more time. And I researched this. There was a study and based on their research, if you live in a city versus a rural part of the country, a pause will seem twice as long as to the person living in the country. I found that very interesting.

That's fascinating to me. In other words, I think it is harder for us to slow down because of the pace that is around us all the time. We're kind of adrenaline junkies, right? We like, we got to do more. We don't like sitting still.

And I would even like to call us here in Virginia. We've got a specific thing here in Virginia Beach at the oceanfront and that's we're event junkies. We love events and we're going to events all the time and we're posting events. And what event can I go to this weekend? And that seems to be.

And we miss out on the ability to really just pause, pause and just enjoy the Lord spending time being still before his presence. And we miss out on the idea of taking a Sabbath. It's biblical for us to take Sabbaths, to take time off, to rest. How often do we rest? That's something we really need to challenge ourselves.

How much do I rest in the Lord? How do I, do I take a day off? And we don't want to be legalistic about it, but are you taking a day? Are you taking a time off and really resting? Because the Sabbath is a way of just saying, dear Lord, I am not.

I'm going to let go and let God. I am not you. And I can't do all that you can do. So I'm pausing. Even the Lord paused on the seventh day, right?

He paused and looked and said, this is good. Look at all that I have done. This is good. This is very good. And he teaches us to do the same thing.

And this is really hard to do. Sabbathing is one of those things that is hard to do. But if we will learn to take time and pause, and that might be a Saturday for you. That might be a Thursday for you. That might be a Sunday for you.

Whatever that is, take time with the Lord. Because unplugging is hard, but we need to do it to get our minds focused on God once again. And it really does benefit us. I was thinking to myself, you know, there's this thing called the Martha syndrome that I was reading about where Mary sat at the feet of Jesus. And Martha was so busy doing the things that matter, that didn't really matter at the time.

You know, Mary was at the feet of Jesus. And Martha's like, oh, Jesus, won't you tell Mary to get back in here? Because there's just so much to do. And it's interesting because a lot of us are like Martha. We have the Martha syndrome.

And the Martha syndrome is like, oh, this and that, this and that. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. And we forget to pause for a minute and actually bow down at the feet of Jesus and love and lean in to who he is. And what we've become, we aren't human beings anymore.

We're human doings. And we're so involved in doing, doing, doing, doing when we need to stop and put in perspective who we are and who God is and who is really in control. And allow him to be Lord of the time, to resource the time in a way that is most effective. And then finally, and a number two to that, we need to give God the first and best of our time. Not only Sabbath, but first and best of our time.

Are we practicing a quiet time before the Lord? Are we spending time in prayer and reflection? At the very beginning of the year, we kind of enter into that. Every January, we do a time of prayer and fasting. And we teach on the importance of giving the first of our day to God.

Just giving, even if it's a few minutes, even if it's three minutes, even if it's two minutes, giving that time to him. And number five, and lastly, and this is really, really, really important. Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the journey. Every time I go to my in-laws or to my parents' house, I've got this thing about me that I just can't get off.

You know, when I'm going, I'm always trying to beat my time. I'm always looking at the clock and thinking about, can I get there just five minutes, ten minutes earlier, and my in-laws live like, you know, 14 hours away, so I'm just like rolling, trying to beat my time, and trying to get there, and the bathroom breaks, this and that, and this and that. John Maxwell shared a story one time, or somebody who was friends with John Maxwell, he's a leader, a world-renowned leader, a Christian leader, and he, this guy was invited on a vacation with him, and the guy kind of showed up at his house, you know, we're leaving at 4 o'clock today, 4 o'clock p.m., and when he got there, John wasn't even packed, his family wasn't even packed, they were kind of just hanging out, and he's just like, oh, he's just stressed, because he's like, time, time, time, time, you know, we've got to get on the road, and we've got to get here by a certain time, or whatnot, or what have you, and then when they finally got down the road, they stopped at every little monument, every big ball of yarn, you know, where the family's getting in front of the big ball of yarn, and take, yeah, she'd smile, and they stopped there, and then every little monument on the way, they stopped, and they were a family, and they got out, and this and that, and then God kind of, he was just getting so irritated about what was going on, we're never going to get to our destination, it's going to take us twice as long, and then God spoke to him and says, just in enjoy the journey, enjoy the journey.

See, John and his family understood what it meant to enjoy the journey that God had put him on, and I love how Mark Batterson says, he says, as he had gotten older, he's changed his way of praying, because every prayer he was praying was ASAP prayers, you know, as soon as possible, God, as soon as possible, right? But he says, my prayer life has changed to being ALAT prayers, as long as it takes. As long as it takes. As long as it takes. Because I never want my gifts to take me further than my character.

One thing I've learned is as I walk out things, and this ASAP person, it's got to happen, it's got to happen, it's got to happen, takes me away from the things that God is doing in my life that are beautiful as I am still, and I trust in him more, and I lean into him more. Someone once said, live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Because today is the first day of the rest of your life, right? And it's also the last day of today, right? So why not live each day?

Each day has its problems of its own, but why not live as if your first day and your last day? Imagine a church, imagine a people, imagine a life where everyone lived that way. Lived as if today is a great day. It might be long, it might be short, it might be hard, it might be great, but it's the first day and the last day. And if we could be a people like that, how amazing that would be.

There's one last thought I want to make, and that's, there's a time for salvation. There's a time for salvation. 2 Corinthians 6.2 says that now is the time of God's favor, and now is the day for salvation. So my heart and my thought on that is, if you haven't made a decision for Christ, maybe today is the day.

If you haven't made a step towards Christ, maybe this is the time. Maybe you're here today. Maybe you don't even know why you're here today. You just happen to be at church today for some reason. But maybe today is the day.

Maybe that's you. Maybe it's time to make a decision. Today is the day of salvation. And if that's you, don't hold back. Don't wait till tomorrow.

Because today could be the last day. Today is the first day of something really great that you may mess out on. And you can join the fold of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, the day I made a decision for Jesus. The day of salvation that was at hand for me was that day. And I could have not made a better decision in all of eternity than that day.

So make that decision today. If you would bow your heads and close your eyes. And if I could have a little music. And so, God, I just, I just already, I'm already just praying for those right now who are making that decision. Like, time is short.

Time is valuable. So I'm just praying, God, that as your presence is here in this place, that you would begin to help people see, that open the eyes and hearts of those who may be hardened, maybe because of something that's happened in their life, or perhaps they've been searching for you for a while. And maybe there's those that are just ready. They realize that now is the time. So, with the church, and in front of you, O Lord, we pray and we believe this prayer and we proclaim it from our hearts.

God, I believe that you are the Son of God, that you are salvation. And you died on the cross for my sin, and I open my heart and my life up to you. I walk into eternity today knowing that you have it all under control, under your sovereignty, and under your grace. That you are a God who loved me so much that when I was yet a sinner, you died for me. And today, I can know you by just receiving your grace, receiving your mercy.

That I couldn't be good enough to have your grace and your mercy. Today, come into my life and come into my heart and make me a new person. And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed still, if you are that person today that made that decision, I just want to pray for you. If you would just as quickly raise your hand up and back down. Just up and back down.

God, I pray for those hands that were raised up and down, Lord, today. I pray that you would begin to just walk with them. I celebrate what you're doing. We're excited that you are doing a marvelous thing. So, God, in your grace and mercy, we give you the praise and glory in Jesus' name.

Amen. Can y'all give God a hand?