EPHESIANS 5 I WILL WALK IN THE WILL OF THE LORD2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Ephesians 5 I Will Walk In The Will Of The Lord

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. And so we're going to be back in Ephesians chapter 5 this evening, and the message that

The Lord has on my heart for us this evening is a different kind of message. And I just want to share from the get-go that it's not really in response to the news and what happened this week. These are things that the Lord was building on my heart. I was sharing with them, sharing them with Pastor Cisco last Wednesday after service. We

about 30 minutes together talking through some of these things and then also I had an opportunity to meet with Pastor Pule on Saturday and we were conversing and sharing these things together and so it is

Now, having understood the events of the week, but also I want you to know you can check out with these other pastors, these godly men. This isn't, you know, an attempt to capitalize or manipulate or anything like that, but just to evaluate the scriptures. And it's a different kind of message for me too, because it's more of a topical message, right?

and not so much verse by verse, but I want to just consider some concepts with you and encourage you to be seeking the Lord for your own life and for what God has in store for you. And so we're going to be here in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 through 17 to start off, and then we'll kind of jump around to a few other passages to continue the thought that the Lord has for us tonight.

Ephesians chapter 5 verses 15 through 17, here's what it says. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Let's pray. Lord, I do pray for us this evening that you would help us to redeem the time.

to be wise in our walk. Lord, that we would be able to know your will and to live out your plans for us. And so help us to hear from you. Help us, give us tools tonight, Lord, to help us draw near to you and receive from you your truths, your insight, your direction for how you want us to live. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

I've titled the message this evening, I Will Walk in the Will of the Lord. And this is going back to these scriptures that we've been looking at for several weeks now. Going back to this portion here in Ephesians chapter 5 where Paul has called us to walk circumspectly.

And walking circumspectly is a matter of having a good perspective on the things that are going on around you. Having some carefulness and diligence and paying attention to what is happening in your life. Walking circumspectly, he says, is a matter of wisdom and it is unwise to

to not pay attention to the things that are happening around you. It is unwise to not redeem the time. And the idea of redeeming the time is cashing in. It's worthless in eternity, right? But the time that you have now has great value in that you can exchange it for eternal good and for eternal value. And so you can, it's like the tickets at a

Castle Park, right? When you're playing in the arcade and you get the tickets, you take those outside of Castle Park, they're worthless. But inside Castle Park, you can redeem them and get amazing prizes, right? In a similar way, we have time that we can redeem ourselves.

And in eternity, it's worthless, right? But right now, we have these moments, these opportunities. And so he's telling us to be very wise and to be paying attention to what's happening around us because, well, there is great need for us to exchange those moments and opportunities for something far more valuable. And so he says, don't be unwise. Don't waste the time, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Understand God's will for your life.

And there's a lot that goes into that, and there's a lot that we're not going to answer for you in regards to the will of the Lord. But coming back to this idea of redeeming the time for a moment, there's some different ideas about what that means. Redeeming the time. Sometimes it's understood, and sometimes it's kind of held on to as in making the most of every day. And that's a good concept to consider, but sometimes redeeming the time means

Well, it turns into something that is filling time rather than redeeming time. Sometimes it comes across either as in our minds and in our hearts or as is taught that you kind of need to, you know, pack as much in as possible in order to redeem the time. And I want to share with you this evening that that's not what redeeming the time is really all about. In fact, I would suggest that's kind of an unhealthy way to understand redeeming.

Time and redeeming time. That filling every moment is not redeeming the time. It's not the example that Jesus set. It's not the way that he lived his life. And it's not the way that he's called us to live. See then that you walk circumspectly. Don't be foolish, but be wise. Have an idea of what's going on around you so that you can redeem the time and understand what the will of the Lord is.

To kind of illustrate this thought a little bit and to kind of walk us through some things that the Lord's been ministering to me about, I want to share with you a little bit about this You Are Invited card, right? We had these printed up. We had some previously and we ran out of those. We had to reprint them. So I recreated them with the new logo and all of that. And it's one of those funny shaped ones, right? So it's not just a standard square. It's got the rounded edges and the pointed and it's,

The card that we have to give out and invite people to church. Now, looking at this card and just to kind of give you a sense of the digital print world, it is impossible, even with all of our technology, to hold on to this card. No, it's impossible, even with all of our technology, to print exactly to the edge of a card like this. There's areas that the printer is unable to reach, right?

And so in order to print out cards like this and have this cool shape and be able to have color all the way to the edge and not like a white boundary around it, in order to have that, you have to provide them an image that is bigger than the card itself. And so here's the image that I provided for them.

There's some guidelines on there that's not on the actual card, but that's what they give you as a template. Now, it's a little bit hard to see with the blue background, so I'm just going to take that out for a second, just so you can kind of see what this looks like. So the file that I send to the printer is a bigger square than the card that we receive, because what they do then is they follow that pink line, and that is cut out, and

And then we receive this. Now, there's a couple important characteristics of this design, this layout that they require for you to keep. And that is you have the bleed. The bleed is the technical term for the artwork that goes beyond the cut line. So it's everything that goes beyond. So it's expected to be cut off. But then you also have the trim line, which is that blue line, or also sometimes called the safe zone line.

And that is there because, well, you don't want to run your content right to the edge of the cut line because not only can printers not exactly print to the edge of paper, but they can't always print straight every time. Sometimes the paper goes in just like a little bit crooked.

Or maybe it's like in, but not all the way in. There's room for variance. And sometimes it comes out differently than you plan. And so the blue lines, they say, put everything that you want to have on the card inside of there.

Because that for sure is going to be there. But if you run to the pink line, well, what's going to happen is there's going to be some that are cut off because that particular piece of paper got, you know, twisted or curved or in too far, out too far. Something happened and you're going to start to miss some of those things that were on your card because you were too close to the cut line.

And so you have to have some margins. You have to have some buffer, some safe area where you can kind of pull back from the cut line in order to make sure that everything you want on the card is on the card that is printed. I think this is a good picture for us to consider. And I'm going to give it to you in a different shape. But I would suggest that you kind of think of your life like this. That here you are, you have this allotted space, right?

And this shape will kind of, I'll describe for you a little bit as we go forward, but here it kind of shows, you know, the space, the content of your life, and that black border around it is the limit line of what you are capable of. You have some great capabilities. You're capable of impressive things by the strength of the Lord, by the will of the Lord, by the power of the Lord. And so your life is

You have opportunities on a variety of sides in a variety of ways to accomplish some great things. Now, in addition to these limits where the cut line is, right, where things begin to fall off, you have things that you are committed to. And I would call this yellow shape in the middle. That's your commitment line. That's your commitment zone. That's what you're committed to. And so you have this, well, what you're capable of,

And then you also have this part of your life as what you are committed to. And then the difference between those, I would call the margin or the buffer zone or the safe zone, that there's some space so that your commitments don't meet your capabilities. Or should they? Should you fill your life in such a way that

You are committed to the very edge of what you are capable of. Well, this evening I want to encourage you. I want to talk to you about redeeming the time and really encourage you that it's an unhealthy way to live, to live at the limit of what you are capable of. And I want to encourage you that we all need to have some margin, some buffer, some safe zone in our life, some space in our life for, well,

The ability to redeem the time, for the opportunity to redeem the time. And I'll develop that thought as we continue to go. But when we get out of balance, when we're running to the edge and the limits and pushing our capacity or our commitments to the end, what ends up happening is bleed. Again, in the printing, right? The bleed is everything that goes beyond the cut line and it begins to fall off.

And we've all experienced that in our lives. There's, well, there's some bleeding. There's some things that we were overcommitted. We went beyond what we were capable of. And man, things, they fell off. They fell apart. They fell short. We just, we lost those things. We bled out. And that can be a way of life sometimes for us. And I think this is in particular, you know, something that we Southern Californians have

need to be paying attention to and redeeming the time is important for us to consider. And so looking at your life in this way, I would look at each of those sides of that hexagon to look at some different aspects of your life. Now, this is not meant to be a formula at all, okay? This is just for kind of demonstration, maybe to stir up some thought.

Maybe you could mix up these different aspects of life. Maybe you could add in some things or subtract some things. This is not, you know, this is the right way to live and evaluate your life. This is, I want to help you think through your life perhaps in a different way than you normally would and think about where you're at and are you understanding the will of the Lord in different aspects of your life?

You have time. That's something that you have. You have 24 hours a day. And how you use that time, you know, that's your capacity, 24 hours. But how do you divvy up that time? That's something that's negotiable.

And, you know, some of that is sleeping, some of that is eating, some of that is working, some of that is doing a variety of things. But how you divvy up that time is important. Now, again, sometimes people are looking at redeeming the time as in, you know, I got to fill every moment of every day. Every, you know, my every moment, every second, every 30 seconds, every 20 minutes, every, you know, five minutes has to be booked, has to be doing something, has to be engaged in something, right?

You can think about your physical health, your physical life, right? You have strength, you have energy, but you have limits. You're not able to do as much as you used to do, for one thing, right? That's part of growing up and growing old, right? But you have limits. You have boundaries. You're not able to exercise completely all day, every day, you know, 24 hours a day. You're not able to work, right?

24 hours a day, or maybe even 10 hours a day, or maybe even 8 hours a day all the time. Your physical capacity, it's different for everybody, but we all have a capacity. You can think about your financial capacity. You have the maximum amount that you're able to bring in on a regular basis. And I would encourage you to consider what are your commitment levels in your finances? Do your commitment levels exceed your capability of bringing in money? That's something to be concerned about.

You have mental capacity. You have a mind. You have a brain. You have the capacity to learn, to develop, to think, to grow. But there's limits to that. You can concentrate intensely for a long time, but not for forever. There's limits. There's boundaries. And you've probably met those limits before where all of a sudden things don't make sense and you can't figure things out. You reach that end, that capacity, that barrier. Emotionally, you have some capacity.

You're able to handle, you're able to process, you're able to deal with emotions to a certain degree. And we've all experienced hitting that boundary as well. And then spiritually, spiritually, you have a capability as well, a capability of engaging with the Lord, hearing from the Lord, receiving from the Lord, ministering on behalf of the Lord, being filled with the Holy Spirit. And there's limits and boundaries for all of us in all of these different aspects of our life.

And because there's limits and boundaries, that's why it's important for us to learn how to redeem the time and pay attention to these things so that we can make the most of the capability that God has given to us. And so I would encourage you to consider your life. You're the yellow shape in the middle. You have capability in all these different aspects in your life. And what is your commitment level?

Not how committed are you to these things, but how obligated are you? How much are you filling up those different aspects? It's easy to think about financial. So let's just kind of start thinking about that a little bit. Think about your financial capability versus your financial commitment. Your financial capability, well, in some senses, that's the amount that you make. That's the amount that you have coming in, let's say, on a month, just to make it easy. So you have, you know,

$1,000 coming in for the month. Now, how much of that is committed? Now, if you have a commitment to pay $1,500 a month and you're bringing in $1,000 a month, you understand you're overcapacity. Or if probably is often the case, you bring in $1,000 a month and you're committed to spend $1,000 a month. Well, it puts you at the boundary. Your commitment is the same as your capability.

You're right there. And in some senses, you could think, wow, that's redeeming the time, right? Or redeeming the budget, right? It's really filling every nook and cranny. That's like, that's great. And yet, I would encourage you to consider this evening that that is not so great. Because if your financial spending is equal to your financial income, then what happens whenever there's an unexpected expense?

They all happen. I mean, we all receive them. It happens all the time. We have things out of the blue that we weren't prepared for. And what then happens is we begin to be over capacity. We begin to bleed. And there's things that are lost. Now, what I'd like you to consider as we think about the finances of this is look at not just the financial, but look how the shape now interacts with the boundaries on other sides as well. You could think about your time, your mental capacity, your

When you are at the limit financially, it doesn't just affect your bank account. Your bank account's not the one sitting there anxious and stressed out and overwhelmed and unable to sleep. And your bank account's just fine even at the limit, right? But you, you're emotional, you're mental, you know, it affects you physically. It affects you

other aspects. And again, you can kind of rearrange the different aspects according to whatever suits your condition and situation. But it's just for illustration that one aspect of our life is interconnected to all the others. And so when I'm at the limit in one area, it doesn't just affect that one area, but it affects the rest of my life as well. And when I'm over capacity in one area, it pushes me to the limit in other areas.

Proverbs chapter 23 verse 4, the Proverbs say, do not overwork to be rich because of your understanding cease. Do not overwork. So that's talking about time to become rich, you know, hoping to have some more buffer zone in the financial area. So I give up time and I sacrifice time and I overextend myself time in order to try to benefit, you know, my finances. But

He says, because of your own understanding, see, you know better. You're not just losing some time. It's affecting the rest of your life as well. You can consider another way, another aspect, your emotions. Now, we could consider all of these. Again, there's some depth here, and I would encourage you to take these things to the Lord and wrestle with them before the Lord. But just to give you a couple examples here, finances and now emotions. You have some emotional capacity here.

For joyful emotions, for sorrowful emotions, you're able to feel a certain amount. How much of your emotional capacity is committed or used up? Some people live their lives with their emotions at the max all the time. When you live with your emotions at the max all the time, well, what happens then when an emotional event happens?

Out of the blue, you get some hard news. Out of the blue, something crazy happens. Out of the blue, your emotions take a turn. And again, you begin to bleed. And again, it's not just affecting now how you feel, but it's affecting your mind. It's affecting your spiritual life. It's affecting your physical health and your energy level. It's affecting so many different aspects of your life when you are over capacity emotionally.

And so as you think about these different aspects of your life and your capability and then your commitment level, where do you stand? And I would encourage you to kind of work through these different aspects of your life and evaluate and go before the Lord. And that's really the key here is what is the will of the Lord for you? If you are over capacity on all sides, I'm pretty confident I can tell you that's not the Lord's will for you. That's unwise. That's not redeeming the time.

That's not making the most of time because, well, there's all these things that are being lost on all sides because you're over capacity. And so, again, you know, the things that you want on the card, the important things, right? They need to be in a certain area. Well, now you have these things that are falling off that you're not able to engage in because you've pushed different aspects of your life to the very limit and not prepared yourself for the unexpected, right?

for the surprises or even for the expected known predictable things that might come down the path what does your life look like are you redeeming the time are you understanding what the will of the lord is maybe does this more better illustrate your life over capacity on all levels except you're really weak spiritually i'm not going to try to show all the different variations and possibilities right we can be strong in some and really weak in others

What I want to encourage you to consider is, what is the will of the Lord for you? If this is what your life looks like, that's not the will of the Lord for you. To be spiritually weak, to be physically exhausted, overcapacity, emotionally unstable. That's not where God wants you to be. That's not God's will for you. God wants you, I would suggest, to have a lot more balance in your life. To have some margin. To have some margin.

to have some room, to address different situations and scenarios, to be able to be flexible in the things that are taking place and the things that are transpiring in your life. And so you can walk through these things and consider, what am I capable of and what am I committed to? How do I have balance in

in these different aspects of my life? And how do I get these margins? Especially, you know, if you're thinking about finances, it's like, I'm spending more than I'm making. How can I get some margins? I've got more to do than I'm capable of doing. How do I get some margins in my physical life? I've got more things to figure out than I have mental capacity for. How do I get some margin and make some room in there? How do I find that balance so that I can redeem the time, so that I can walk circumspectly?

Not running like a chicken with my head cut off because I'm over capacity. I've got all of these things. No, but having some perspective because I've maintained some boundaries. How does that happen? How do I do that? And here's where I want to kind of jump around a little bit. I'm going to walk you through four different passages to think about this and to look at some examples of it. And so first we're going to go to Mark chapter 1. Would you turn there with me to Mark chapter 1?

And here's point number one for us this evening. I will be led by God consistently. Here's the first part, the first step, the most important thing really to consider as we talk about or think about redeeming the time, understanding what the will of the Lord is, paying attention to our margins and our boundaries and being able to make decisions regarding these different aspects of our life.

Here in Mark chapter 1, we're going to look at verses 35 through 38. Verse 35 is a verse I shared a few weeks ago on a Sunday morning, and it's when the Lord began to stir up these thoughts and began to work out these things that I'm sharing with you tonight. So Mark chapter 1, verse 35 through 38, here's what it says. Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight...

Here we are looking at the example of Jesus who sets the example for us.

And there's a couple things to pay attention to. First of all, in the morning, a long time before daylight, he gets alone with the Father and he prays. Now the thing to hold on to in this is not necessarily the time of day. That's not something we need to be legalistic about. It has to be in the morning and you have to wake up before daylight or you're just a pathetic sinner. No, that's not the example or that's not what we're addressing here. But here's the thing. Every one of us

Need time alone with the Father. Every one of us, we need that every day. If Jesus needed it, well, we need it. He sets the example for us. He sets the standard for us. And in order for us to have some boundaries, in order for us to be able to redeem the time and understand what the will of the Lord is, here's what we need to do first and foremost. We need to have time with the Father every day. And Jesus would often do this.

He would get away from the crowds. He would get away from his disciples and he would have that time with his father. Well, immediately after his time with the father, the disciples catch up with him and they're like, oh Jesus, we're so glad we found you because everybody is looking for you. Now, here's Jesus. He's got disciples.

capacity, capability, just like us, limits, because he limited himself by becoming a man, right? So he's got limits, he's got boundaries, and there's great demand. There's great requirements. There's great expectations. Everyone is looking for you. It's a good thing we found you. We were thinking, man, you're going to be a little bit later, and

We didn't know how you're going to talk to all these people because, man, there's a whole line of people, that big crowd. They want to hear from you. They want to talk to you. They want to be healed by you. There's all these people demanding your presence and your attention. But what's interesting is that Jesus says, let's leave. Now think about that for a second. Can you imagine if tonight you show up for service and the place is packed? There's a line out the door. And Jerry says, you know, I was thinking, I'm just going to go to McDonald's. Let's just move on. I'm just going to move on. I'm not going to.

Can you imagine people clamoring to hear from Jesus and Jesus saying, you know, I'm going to move on to a different town. It's kind of unfathomable for us. And you could look at that and say, man, that's a great thing. I mean, there's all these people who want to meet with Jesus and hear from Jesus. There's so much need. There's so much good things that could happen. So many good things that Jesus could do. But Jesus says, my time here is done.

I'm capable of more time here, but I've hit the limit of what I'm able to do here. I've hit the limit of what the Lord wants me to do here. And so I need to move on to the next town because it's for this purpose that I've been sent. I haven't been sent to just stay in one town with all the people who want to hear from me. And they'll suck up all my time if I let them. They'll suck up all my energy if I let them. They'll, you know, but that's not why I'm sent to just stay here.

And so Jesus had to set a boundary and say, no, now how did he know when to do that and how to do that? Well, it goes back to verse 35. It's after he spent this personal time, this solitary place with the Father, he prayed. He understood the will of the Lord. He understood the will of the Father. And so he was able to set a boundary and say, look, there's all these good things that are demanding my attention, my energy, my time, but I can't say yes to all the things that are

wanting me to say yes to. All the people that want me to say yes to them, I can't say yes to all of them. And that's hard to discern. It's hard not to do. It's hard to maintain that perspective. But Jesus maintained that perspective by being close to the Father, by understanding the will of the Lord. Listen, there's a lot of good things that you can do. In this world, this church,

The people around you, your family, they have more demands, more requirements, more requests for you than you are capable of fulfilling. And they're even good things. Now, there's a lot of bad things that could fill your time and take your energy and all of that too, right? But even the good things that you could be committed to, there's a lot of good things that you should not do. There's a lot of great conversations that you shouldn't have. You're not capable enough

of meeting all the needs that would be desired for you to meet, that you would desire to meet or that others would place that upon you. We need to come back to this place that we are led by God consistently. Now, this idea of boundaries and balance, and I'm not suggesting that we can never be at the max

We'll cover that in just a couple minutes as well. That there are times that we need to be at the max of what we're capable of. But we can't live there because if we live there, well, then when the next thing comes, we're already at capacity and now things begin to fall off because we've already committed ourselves to too great of a degree. The emphasis that I want to make sure is passed on here is that this isn't a formula, but

But for each of us individually, we need to get with the Father. We need to have time with the Father consistently, hearing from Him about these different aspects of our life so that we can set the boundaries that He wants to set, so that we know when to say no, that we know when to set limits, so that we can be prepared for the other things that God has for us.

Jesus said, I've been set for this purpose, to continue on to the next town. And so I need to say no here so that I can continue on and do what God has called me to do. You can think about this in your time. You can think about this in your finances, right? If I'm spending all that I'm getting, not hearing from the Father on how that needs to be spent, well, it puts me at capacity and

causes me to miss out. I need to be able to say no to good things I could spend my money on so that I can, well, do the rest of the things with my money that God has called me to do. You can think about your spiritual life. You can think about your mental, your physical health. You can think about your emotions. Listen, when I was younger, I would listen to KFI all day long. When I was driving around in my truck for paychecks, I would drive around, listen to. After a little bit of time, I found myself like

frustrated all the time, angry all the time, upset with stuff all the time. And it's like, man, what is up? This isn't normal for me. And then the Lord said, you know, you're spending a lot of time listening to frustrated, angry people shouting, raving, you know, rile you up about things. And so I was already at my max emotional capacity because I was putting myself in that position, that condition. You know, there's some things that really trigger your emotions.

Maybe it's politics. Maybe it's talk radio. Maybe it's Facebook. Maybe it's something else. But we have capacity. We have limitations. And perhaps you need to pull back on some things in order to have some balance, in order to walk circumspectly so that you can handle, well, the other things that the Father wants to do. And that brings me to point number two. Now we're going to jump to Exodus chapter 18. So jump all the way back to the beginning, second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 18.

Here's point number two for Exodus chapter 18. It's, I will let God restrict me. Thinking about my time, my finances, my emotional health, my spiritual things, you know, all of those different aspects, I need to let God put some restrictions and pull me back from the edges in each of those areas as he leads and as he wants to.

In Exodus chapter 18, we're jumping into the scene where Moses is leading the children of Israel in the wilderness and his father-in-law Jethro comes and begins to spend some time with him. In Exodus chapter 18 verse 13, it says, and so it was on the next day that Moses sat to judge the people and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening and

So when Moses' father-in-law saw all that he did for the people, he said, wow, Moses, way to redeem the time. No, no, that's not what he said. He said, what is this thing that you're doing for the people? Why do you alone sit and all the people stand before you from morning until evening? And Moses said to his father-in-law, because the people come to me to inquire of God.

When they have difficulty, they come to me and I judge between one and another and I make known the statutes of God and his laws. So Moses' father-in-law said, the thing that you do is not good. Moses, from morning until evening, all day long, you're pushing yourself to the very limit to try to handle all of these problems for all of this people. Moses, this is not good. You're overextending yourself. You're setting yourself up and you're setting this people up

for hurt and failure. This is bound to fail. You're living at capacity. It's not a good place to be continually. He goes on to give him some sound advice. He says, look, maybe you should get some guys, set them as judges and rulers, and they can handle these issues. And then only the ones that they can't handle will come to you. So you're still involved. It's still part of your responsibility, but

But you alone, you're not at max capacity. You're sharing that burden, sharing that load across these people. And I always love what Jethro says. He says, look, if you do this, verse 23, if you do this thing and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure and all this people will also go to their place in peace. Moses, if you don't pull yourself back, you're not going to endure. But if you do what I'm encouraging you to do and get these other guys, and if that's what God says to you,

So Jethro says, look, I'm not the place of the father. You need to, Moses, you get alone with the father, just like Jesus will, right? Get alone with the father, hear from the father. And if the father confirms that, here's what you need to do. You need to restrict yourself, to pull back. There's a lot of people who would love for you to hear their case, but you need to say no to that. You need to delegate that responsibility, those activities, and you need to pull back the

And not spend all day, every day doing this work. You can't keep this pace, Jethro is saying. It's not good for you and it's not good for the people. I think it's interesting that when God established the nation of Israel, he built the Sabbath into their schedule. He built margin into their schedule. You can't work on this day. Because what do we do? Well, we work, you know,

Seven days a week, right? Like, that's the tendency. That's, we want to fill the time. That's redeeming the time. No, God says, hey, you know what? Here's how to redeem the time. Take a day off. It's unproductive. You know, it's not. We need to allow the Lord to restrict us. Say, no, you shouldn't reach your limit all day, every day. You shouldn't be at your full capacity in every regard. You should pull back.

There needs to be those times. Let God restrict you. Let God set some boundaries. Let God say no. Here's another example to consider. It's in Luke chapter 10. You don't have to turn there. But when Jesus is sending out his disciples to go ahead of him and preach the gospel, he gives them some specific instructions in Luke chapter 10, verse 3 and 4. He says,

Jesus here set restrictions on them. Here, go on this task. Here's what you got to do. Go preach the gospel, but don't take any money. And I would be like, Lord, I need some finances, you know? What am I going to do about my money? How am I going to provide for myself? Don't take your knapsack. But Lord, my favorite shirt. I got to bring my favorite shirt. You know, I have my preaching shirt. And if I don't have my preaching shirt, how am I going to preach? But I can't travel in my preaching shirt because then it'll get dirty. So I need a knapsack to carry my preaching shirt, right?

Don't bring extra sandals. But Lord, I need my good kicks for preaching the gospel, right? You've seen those preachers with sneakers? You've got to have those amazing sneakers, right? To be able to preach the gospel. Jesus set limits and said, nope, restrict yourself. You could take money. You could take clothes. You could take that. But don't. You don't need to take that. You shouldn't take that. But Lord, I can carry it. It's not too heavy. I can carry a suitcase along with me. It's not a big deal. I don't have to take my whole wardrobe, but just some things.

No, no, no. You have the capacity to carry more, but don't carry so much. Travel light. And don't greet anyone along the way. And you might say, well, Lord, I'm a social person. And I'm out to preach the gospel. I got to greet people on the way. I love to greet people on the way. And think about how many times I'll get to preach the gospel on the way. And Jesus says, no, don't preach the gospel on the way. Preach the gospel when you get there. Restrict yourself. Let the Lord place some restrictions and say, no.

That's no, that's not what you're to be about. That's not how you're to spend your money, your time, your energy, your finances, whatever. That's, that's not what I have for you. No, instead redeem the time and pull back in these areas. You think about it emotionally as well. You know, emotions are not some separate thing for us. And this took me a long time to learn. When your emotions are hit hard, it affects your mind. It affects your body. It affects your spirit.

It affects your time. It affects you greatly. When Jesus heard about John the Baptist being killed in Matthew chapter 14, verse 13, he withdrew. He fell back. He didn't continue on ministry in the same schedule as he was. No, it says he departed from there by boat to a deserted place by himself. He took some time off. He took some time alone again with the father. He took some, he took a break. Not because he endured some crazy physical thing, but because he got some hard news.

I think it's important for us to consider. Understand what the will of the Lord is. Sometimes when you get that hard emotional thing, what the Lord wants you to do is take a break. Withdraw. Pull back. Have some time with him. Have some time to recoup. It does affect the rest of your life. And so if you're over capacity, you know, things are going to fall off. If you're at capacity, there's going to be some costs along with that. Let God restrict you. Walking in the will of the Lord also means I'm going to let God stretch me.

Let's jump over to 2 Corinthians real quick. 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Here we're looking at the example of the Apostle Paul. And in the example of the Apostle Paul, we have this account, this occasion where he had what he described as a thorn in the flesh. Now we don't know exactly what this was, but it was some kind of infirmity that Paul had. It seems like it was a physical ailment perhaps, some kind of issue. And

Paul thought, this is more than I can handle. And so he prays to God for the Lord to take it away. 2 Corinthians 12, verse 7, Paul says, And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.

And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. This is important. Going back to point number one, this is why we need to be led by God consistently.

Because there are times in our life where we are overcommitted, where we're at capacity, and the Lord wants to say, you need to pull back. You're doing too much. You're over-involved. You need to don't overwork to become rich. No, no. Pull back. You need to have some space. But there's also a lot of times where the opposite is true, where we just want to live pulled back and be like, yeah, I'm good. This is as far as I can do. This is as much as I can do. And the Lord wants to show us, no, no. You think your capacity is here.

But you need to understand your capacity is here. And so the Lord stretches us. And sometimes he pushes us to those limits to help us understand where the real boundaries are, to push us out of our comfort zone, to push us beyond where we like to be and where we prefer to be. Paul's like, I can't take any more pain, agony, suffering over this issue. It's too much. And God says, no, it's not. You think you're at capacity, but you're not.

You feel like you're at capacity, but you're not. I can push you a little bit farther. My grace can carry you through the midst of this. We need to have both. We can't only have times of stretching and not have times of restriction, pulling back in space. We have to have both. And if we are led by God consistently, we will have both.

We will have seasons where we are overcommitted, overextended, where we're beyond ourselves, and then God will pull us back. And we'll have times and seasons where we want to be pulled back and reserved, and God wants to push us and send us out and stretch us and expand us. If we are walking with God consistently, we will have both take place in our life. When it came about that we were here at the church and the board was meeting and it was clear it's time for Jerry to get a job outside of the church,

First thing I wanted, everything that I wanted was a physical job because I have a mental and spiritual responsibility here. So what I didn't want is more mental responsibility because I felt like I was already at capacity. And God said, no, you're not. I'm going to give you a tremendously difficult mental job and you can do both. I'm going to stretch you. Financially, you may think this is my capacity. I can't spend more than this. And God might want to say, you know, you need to trust me

And spend more than you're comfortable spending. You're like, yeah, here comes the Porsche. No, no. Be led by the Father, right? Go back to that. That's the important thing. But there may be a season where God wants you to spend more than you make or more than you know where the income is coming from. He doesn't want that to be your way of life. He doesn't want that to be your rule of life. But there are seasons where he's going to stretch you and call you to take steps of faith. There are seasons where he wants you to spend more time.

And yeah, maybe a normal work week should be 40 or 50 hours for you, but sometimes 80 or 90 hours, that's what he wants to stretch you. Sometimes you're working 80 or 90 hours and God wants to say, come back, pull back. You need some space. I will let God stretch me. I will let God restrict me. And then finally, let's just jump over to Hebrews chapter 12 for point number four. Point number four is I will run my race with endurance.

I will run my race with endurance. Here in Hebrews chapter 12, we're given the instruction to look at Jesus again as the example. Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1 says, Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Every one of us have a race. We have a course that God has set in front of us. And the point is, if I'm over-engaged, if I'm in, you know, over-committed, if I'm involved in things that the Lord does not have me to be involved in, it's going to mess up my race. And so he talks about the weights and the sin that mess us up.

And some of those things are just weights. They're not directly sin, you know, thou shalt not commit adultery, but it's just weight. It's just extra stuff that takes up your time, your energy, your mental capacity, your emotional capacity. It takes up and it takes away from your race. It takes away from what God actually wants in your life. And so redeeming the time, again, it's not filling every aspect of your life to the limit of

But it's about having that balance. And there will be seasons where God stretches you to the limit. And there will be seasons where God pulls you back. But you need to be wise to walk circumspectly and understand what the will of the Lord's is, the Lord's will is so that you can run the race with endurance. And the idea of endurance is so that you can run for a long time. Listen, we need to pace ourselves. And sometimes we're sprinting when we should be jogging.

And granted, sometimes we're jogging when we should be sprinting. We have to pace ourselves to last for a long time. Some are not pacing themselves. Some will burn out. Some will bleed out. And major things that God wants, major things that God wants to do, major things that God has called us to are going to be missed, are going to be lost. Because we did not keep the balance. We didn't keep the boundaries. I will run my race with endurance.

God has a race that he set before you. He wants you to last for a long time. So be wise in the use of your time. Be wise in the expending of your energy and your emotions. Be wise in your spiritual life, in your growth and your commitments. Listen, I haven't really touched on that, but the spiritual aspect of things is important too because, listen, if you're committed to serving spiritual things and doing the things of the Lord,

That's not just a spiritual toll. It takes a toll on your time, your physical strength. It takes a toll on your mental capacity. It impacts just like all the rest. And the things you do for the Lord require. So if your time's already at max capacity, you're going to be limited in what you can do spiritually. And so on and so forth. Again, it's why we need to have some margin. We need to have some buffer zone. We need to have some space in our lives for God to work.

for events to happen, for unexpected things to just slam us, but we're ready for it because we've been walking circumspectly. We've pulled back. We have room. We're prepared, and we understand what the will of the Lord is. So this evening, I would encourage you to walk in the will of the Lord. It doesn't come from a formula. I didn't give you the magic, you know, here's, you know, the 37 things you got to do. It really comes back to just one thing.

You need to have time alone with the Father every day. Understand His will. Let Him pull you back. Let Him stretch you so that you can run with endurance and finish well. Let's pray. God, I pray for each one of us. Lord, You know our capacity. You know our commitments. And You know where they are not where You want them to be. And Lord, we can feel guilty for not pushing ourselves so far and

keeping ourselves at that level, and yet, Lord, we need to not operate based on how we feel, but based on what you say. Lord, we can feel comfortable in the pace that we're in, and maybe you want to stretch us. Lord, you know. You know where we're at. You know what we need. So God, I pray that you would draw us near to you. Help us to hear your voice. Help us to understand your will, to be really wise, to be protective, that we don't overcommit our

Lord, that even as there's great call and great need and great desire and great expectations placed upon us, Lord, that we'd be able to have a clear sense of what you want. Lord, that we would maintain the balance that you have called us to. Lord, help us to see, help us to recognize when we ignore those boundaries, Lord, how it doesn't just affect one little piece of our life. Lord, it throws off, it causes issues, it

brings stress and anxiety to many different aspects of our lives. And Lord, we haven't even considered the way that we interact with our spouse and one another and the impact that we have on each other. And Lord, there's great need for us to hear from you and maintain the boundaries that you desire for us. Help us, God. Give us an urgency. Give us a clarity.

May we hear your voice and know your will and walk in it. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.