Evangelical Baptist Church

A developing spiritual maturity parallels a growing respect for time.

The Creationist/Evolutionist fight is sad on many fronts, not least because it has diverted our attention from really listening to the first chapter of the Bible. But now let’s listen: “Let there be light” – Light→Observable motion→Time. (Thanks, Wade!) God’s first creative word brings time!

We keep listening to Genesis 1 and we hear “evening and morning”; “first…second…third…etc”; the sun and the moon placed for “signs and for seasons [appointed times] and for days and years”; the seventh day blessed and made holy. What’s the message? The Creation consists of stuff and time; space and history.

My day timer’s first page holds a quotation: “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time. For that’s the stuff life is made of.”

God’s emphasis on time does not cease with Genesis 1. The Old Testament is careful to place its events in history. Lives are often measured only by years lived. And the wisdom books that offer to teach us how to live assert that much of wisdom is responding properly to the time, or, living appropriately. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…”

The prudent man is called such since he is practiced in looking down the road [of time], noticing evil, and then hiding himself. Conversely people get in trouble just because they ignore the solemn fact of time; i.e., they’re hasty or they procrastinate. “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.”

Although I haven’t pointed it out as we go through Mark, that gospel is sprinkled with the Greek euthys, - IMMEDIATELY! As if Jesus were on a schedule. Not harried, not scrambled, but still a schedule. Paul confirms this idea: “At just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.”

So far, so good. But now we gently need to state some problems with us and time:

First, we usually don’t think of spiritual maturity in terms of time, but rather in terms of activity. In other words, we might abstain from illegalities, voyeurism, and slandering those that live trustingly next to us. Good.

But we allow whole days to pass by in the grey-haziness of harmless entertainment – internet surfing and Family Ties reruns. Bad. Easy there - I know the arguments; I’ve read the new “freeing” books: “Who are you to judge,” “fawning grace” and all that. But the Good Shepherd created time and drew our attention to it. Neutral activity cannot sanctify a bad use of time.

Secondly, we unblinkingly accept the schedules that the culture offers to us, without letting them pass under the light of Scripture, for example, what Friday night means (party - celebrate…what?); how many hours to work (as little as possible or all the time); what to do at 65; evening activity (turn on the blue screen or the white screen); etc.

But in the Scripture we feel the ideal rhythm of the Creation: six days labor; one day rest. This is the rhythm of the Creator and the Creation. We should not wonder that it was not stressed in the early church, when many church members were slaves and had no control over schedules. But didn’t Jesus (echoing a saying of the day) give the perspective: “The Sabbath for man; and not man for the Sabbath.”

If we stifle that rhythm, we will pay for it. We’ll become bored, harried, distracted, dull. We’ll fall into the trap of thinking that we’re indispensable; or we’ll go into the other ditch: moments are meaningless, only big events matter. Worst, we might stop hearing God!

Thirdly, we suppose that time can be divided into spiritual time and __________. Well, all time is not the same, we must learn appropriateness. But surely the division is not between spiritual time and ____________. Don’t you aspire to the “tree planted by the rivers of water”? And don’t you know that what makes that tree so alive, the man so robust, is that “day and night” he meditates on the law of God?

“And [Christ] died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” All my moments under the dominion of the Christ – that’s what it means to be a Christian.

Fourthly, on the other hand, we hope that our sacrificial service to God will not inconvenience our schedule. But you, sir, will not escape time. And you, ma’am, cannot hide from God’s call to present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

Many times the pastor’s call to more commitment, more involvement to the “life together*,” (which is the immediate concomitant to the “living sacrifice”) is met by a “don’t have time.” But we can reply, with just a little recourse to rhetoric, ‘what else do you have to offer up?’ What can we sacrifice, except our schedule? Where are priorities to be discovered, apart from daytimers?

Finally, we are often found impatient, unprepared, and distracted – all conditions that betray a deficient regard for time. What does it mean to live like a Christian? Understand what has happened. Plan wisely. Live appropriately in the moment. And wait (“I come quickly”).

Dear people of EBC – read the old spiritual masters. They’re all talking about “improving the time.” They are assigning moral weight to time, and not merely activities.

You can disagree with their specific applications:
I take it for granted, that every Christian, that is in health, is up early in the morning; for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early, because he is a Christian, than because he is a labourer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or has business that wants him. – Anglican William Law: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

But don’t begrudge and ignore their emphasis. Has dispensationalism or reformed theology or being squirrelly with grace or bad example led us away from giving high regard to time? Let us set an example for the world around us and the generations to follow of living well under the fixed rule of time.

Beloved, you can do it! I’ve seen wildly successful business persons, families crawling with demanding children, stellar students, tough tradesmen – living well under time: Working smart; living with clear Christian priorities; being temperate in relaxation. It’s unusual, but we can do it.

Therefore preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourself with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers…

Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. That time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry…The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.

*See Dietrich Bonhoeffer