Sermon: Live on Redeemed Time

mt olive ev lutheran church Sunday October 18 2026 9 15 AM CDT: The second reading will serve as the sermon text this morning. Ephesians chapter 5. Consider carefully then how you walk, not as unwise people, but as wise people. Make the most of your time, because the days are evil. For this reason, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk on wine, which causes you to lose control. Instead be filled with the Spirit. By speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your hearts to the Lord, by always giving thanks for everything to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by submitting to one another in reverence for Christ. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Grace, mercy, and peace are yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. We pray. Lord, teach us that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Amen. Sometimes people only start paying attention to how they manage their time when they are told they're living on borrowed time. Maybe they go to the doctor and the doctor says, how are you still walking around like this? You have this disease. I don't even know how you're still alive. And so the person starts to think, I'm living on borrowed time. If I only have a year, if I only have a month, if I only have a few weeks, then I really have to pay attention to how I'm using the little bit of time I have left. Today, thankfully, the Apostle Paul does not tell us you only have two weeks left. No, we don't even need that kind of pressure in order to start using our time more wisely. Because God doesn't tell us today you're living on borrowed time. No, you're you're living the exact amount of time that the Lord has set out for you, and He'll take you to heaven exactly when the time is right. But the Lord says, while you're still around here on earth, whatever time the Lord gives you is redeemed time. Redeemed time. And so the Lord shows us how to manage our time. It's by living on redeemed time. We read this in Ephesians chapter 5. Paul wrote, Consider carefully then how you walk, not as unwise people, but as wise people. Consider carefully. Time management experts will tell you that if you don't plan out a day, time probably will get away from you. You'll get to the end of the day and think, the dishes still aren't done, the lawn still isn't mowed, nothing's taken care of. What did I do today? Well, the Apostle Paul isn't telling you, you better make sure you get your to-do list done every single day. But he is telling you that spiritually speaking, failing to plan is planning to fail. So how can you plan to use your time, use your days? Wisely. Well, we'll get to that. But the Apostle Paul first tells us why this is so important. It's not because he cares that much about you getting to the end of your day and having a few things left undone. It's because if you don't plan to use your day wisely, then it is going to be used for someone else's plans, not yours, but the devil. Paul says this. Make the most of your time because the days are evil. The days are evil. What does Paul mean by that? Well, he talks about it later in Ephesians chapter six. He's saying the default setting of any given day in this world is evil. Because the devil has plans. What are the devil's plans? To tempt you and lead you away from God and into unbelief. But not just the devil, the world has plans in general. It's to corrupt you and fill your life with things that crowd out God. And your sinful nature has plans. Plans to use any given day for me, myself, and I and the things I want to do. Those are the default settings. In other words, Paul wants you to picture your calendar. Maybe using Google Calendar, maybe using a still a paper planner. And when you look on each day, don't look at the top and see things like, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Halloween. Look at the top of every box in your calendar and see this label: Evil Day. That's the default. Evil day. This is gonna be a bad day. An evil day, unless we consider carefully. So, how? How do we turn an evil day to a good day? Well, the Apostle Paul told us, he says, make the most of your time, because the days are evil. For this reason, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. That's it. Understand what the Lord's will is. Because God has plans. That's God's will. God has plans for any given day, too. And when we understand those plans, and when God puts those plans into practice, that takes an evil day and it makes it good. So maybe don't picture a calendar, but picture a big store. We'll call it evil Mart. Maybe you think Walmart's evil, so this will work well for you. Evil Mart. But in this store, there's not merchandise. In this store are days. Every single day of your life. Paul says, walk into Evilmart, find 2026, go into the aisle that has October, and find October 18th. Take that day off the shelf, put it in your cart and buy it. Walk out with it. Redeem it for something better by understanding the Lord's will. There's a pastor of ours in Russia named Andreti, who understands this really well. I had a chance to watch a video greeting from him about five years ago, and he had just gone through something that seemed to be a very evil day. Andreti was a young man, an athlete, his whole life ahead of him, and he was biking to work, and for some reason somebody wasn't looking, and they ran him over with their car. Destroyed his bike and destroyed his body. So here is this wonderful young man with life ahead of him. And he's stuck in the hospital with years of operations, just in the hopes that maybe someday he could walk again. Would you agree that a day where you get run over by a car is an evil day? He wouldn't. Because he understands the Lord's will. Talking about this, Andrei says, Actually, I'm glad that happened. What? He says, before this accident happened, I was a young, strong man, and all I did was rely on myself and think about myself and all of my good plans and all the things I was going to accomplish in life. But then when I was sitting there in the hospital, I began to understand the Lord's will. What does he say? My strength is made perfect in your weakness. He said, what a good day when the Lord started teaching me that for real. Andrei said, It's Russia, it's hard to share the gospel, and I had so few opportunities to do it. But now that I'm stuck in this hospital bed, I get to talk about Jesus with people all the time. He understood the Lord's will. He got 365 days in the hospital more to tell people about Jesus. Your kingdom come, isn't that a good thing? Andrei saw what could have been a bunch of evil days, and when he understood the Lord's will, that the Lord works out all things for the good of those who love him, those days became good because of what God can do when he carries out his plans. And we know that the Lord can do this with any given evil day because we know our Savior Jesus. What do we call the day? Where the only perfect man who ever lived was betrayed and arrested and tortured and crucified and abandoned. Good Friday. What? Good Friday? An evil day like that? Good Friday. Because Jesus understood the Lord's will. That it was the Lord's will to cause him to suffer. And Jesus wanted to do that for our sake, to go through all of that to save us. To forgive our sins and to make every single day for every single one of us change from evil to good. And when Jesus rose again from the dead, he proved it. What's the worst day of your life? Dying? You thought so, till Jesus rose again from the dead. Even that is a good day. Because those who live and believe in Jesus will never die. God's will is to change evil days and make them good. And he does that for you. You could go to the doctor this week and they could say, Wow, you're living on borrowed time. Got two days to live. And you'd say, Good. Good. The Lord numbers my days. He's smarter than I am. He's got a great plan. I got two days to tell people about it. The Lord can take evil days and make them good. You think of the days where you do struggle and you give into temptation and you give in to doubt. And you're corrupted by the world, and you go along with your sinful nature, and you put your head on the pillow at the end of the day, and you say, Wow, what a wasted day. I didn't even live that day for the Lord. And you come in repentance to Jesus and you say, I'm sorry, I didn't make the most of my time today. And he says, think again. Because I can take that entire day and make it good by saying, I forgive you. And you look back on a day and you say, That wasn't wasted. That's a day covered by God's grace. And I live like that every day. The Lord takes evil days and He makes them good according to His will. That's living on redeemed time. Of course, understanding the Lord's will and making the most of every day and living in God's grace is difficult. It's hard to remember that because you got a lot of things working against you, which is why the Lord doesn't make you do this alone. He gives you a little peer pressure. He gives you a little accountability. People in your life who help you remember that you are living on redeemed time. And that's what Paul talks about next. He says, Do not get drunk on wine, which causes you to lose control. Instead be filled with the Spirit by speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Singing and making music with your hearts to the Lord, by always giving thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul knows how difficult it is to walk on the straight and narrow. And he gives an example of something here that can lead us to wander to either side. He says, Don't get drunk on wine, which causes you to lose control. Why does he focus on that sin in particular? Well, what does drunkenness do? It's not a one-time sin and then it's over. Drunkenness maybe takes you a little while to get drunk, but then what happens? That lasts for a while. You can't walk straight. For a little while. You lose control, and so you're not living carefully. And so Paul says, Don't get drunk on wine. But this also applies to anything else that could fill your life and cause you to lose control. Wine is good. Too much is bad. It'll cause you to lose control. That's true of other things too. Sports are good. Too much can be bad if that's all you care about in life and you forget that you're living for the Lord. Family is good. It can become bad if all you care about in life is your family and they become idols and you're not thinking of the Lord. Work is good. Too much work is bad. If all you care about is money and promotions and success, then you lose sight of the fact that you're living for God. And so Paul says here, don't fill your life with things like that. With things that will cause you to lose control, to wander off the straight and narrow path. Instead, Be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. And what does that look like? Some people think being filled with the Spirit means you lose control. You start speaking in uncontrollable tongues or flailing in the pews. We Lutherans don't do that. Why? Because that's not what being filled with the Spirit is. It's the opposite of losing control. Being filled with the Spirit is being filled with the Lord and being filled with his control. And so how does that happen? Not by sitting around waiting for a feeling or listening on the wind. It happens like this. Be filled with the Spirit by speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your hearts to the Lord. It's weird comparing the spirit to drinking. But the Apostle Paul does say it's better to drink in the spirit with others. It's more fun to party in the spirit with other Christians. In fact, you need that. That's why you're here today. Yes, you are here to be filled with the Spirit and receive God's grace. But there's another really important reason you're here today. It's to speak to one another. I need the Spirit from you. I need to hear you sing these hymns, sing these carefully chosen words that fill you with the Spirit, that talk about Jesus and the Lord's will. I need to hear that, and you need to hear it from others. That's how you are filled with the Spirit. And in case you're thinking, no, nobody needs to hear me sing, it's in parentheses, but it's important. It says, speak to one another with these songs, singing and making music with your hearts. With your hearts. When you are here, singing the gospel, singing the word of God to each other with gratitude in your hearts. Now that's the most beautiful sound in the world. You fill each other with the spirit. And that makes good days. I think of another missionary, he's not in our fellowship, hardworking guy. We don't have any missionaries in North Korea, but there's a missionary trying to serve North Korea. Very dangerous place for Christians. They'll capture you, they'll torture you. And this missionary is very discouraged because he was having a hard time finding Christians on this side of the river in South Korea, and he was having an impossible time finding Christians on that side of the river in North Korea. And so on one particular day, when he thought, I'm wasting my time, I'm wasting my life, he grabbed his guitar and he grabbed a friend, and they went down to the river, and they went out in a boat on the river, and they sang songs. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And a funny thing happened as he sang with his friend. The depression lifted, and he was filled with the spirit, and he thought, Okay, I can keep going. Today's a good day. So he did it the next day. Down to the river. And the next day, and a funny thing happened. As they went singing down by the river, they were no longer alone. More people came. Then they were standing on the shore. And then eventually they were themselves were in boats, getting as close as possible so they could hear the music and sing along. But then the police came and broke it up. So he waited a couple days and he got down again. And so he snuck back down by the river, didn't go out in a boat, stood on the shore, grabbed his guitar and started to sing. And heard a rustling in the leaves behind him. And turned around, he thought, no, I'm gonna be caught again. And it was someone from North Korea, from the other side of the river, who made it across in order to say to this person, why did you stop? And the missionary said, What do you mean? He said, Why did you stop singing? There were so many of us on the other side listening. We couldn't sing, we'd be caught, but it was so encouraging. This man who thought he was wasting his life, all of a sudden just by singing songs of the Spirit, had a congregation on two sides of the river. Why would you stop? That's the joy of living on redeemed time. It's not my job to stand in front of you today and say, start making the most of your time. You're wasting your life. No. It's my job to tell you that the Lord has already redeemed your time. And so you do get to spend your days covered in God's grace, proclaiming the gospel to each other. And so my only question for you is why would you stop? Why would you stop spending your life? Living according to the Lord's will, being filled with the Spirit, and filling others with the Spirit, we won't. We won't stop. Whether we're living on borrowed time, whether we have today, or in reality, when we have eternity, we live on redeemed time. And we will not stop. Amen.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention Ephesians 5 · chapter mention