(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Alright, so as I mentioned in the announcements the month of March, and today is March 1st, we are doing another challenge, we've been doing challenges for the past year and we're going to continue doing those challenges. We're focusing on different aspects of our spiritual life and this month we'll be focusing on trying to identify areas of our life where we are wasting time, this is kind of the best way to do it, wasting time, wasting our precious time that we have in this life, doing things that ultimately don't matter at all and I said this this morning, you know, I'm not against some forms of entertainment or winding down and kind of resetting so that you don't just burn yourself out, you need to be able to have some level of being able to do things, you know, whether it just be enjoying your family, playing a game with your family, doing things like that, this isn't, you know, the sermon isn't just to try to get you like so rigid like you're in a prison or something where you're just, you know, this is the way it's going to be all the time and just hammer it down, but if you take a look at your life I'm sure you'll be able to identify things that you're just like, you know what, this is just a total waste, this really isn't serving any good purpose or I'm just spending, even if it's not just bad maybe in and of itself, it's just you're spending too much time on it, right, maybe it's something you just need to scale back a little bit, you don't have to just completely eliminate from your life but you realize, yeah, this is just a little bit too much or maybe you've got a sin and that's something we did last year as well is identify something that's just kind of sinful that you can just try to easily get out of your life, right, and you want to redeem the time so that is what we're focusing on this month and I kind of want to preach a little bit on that this morning. We started in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 but if you want to keep your place there and flip over to James chapter 4, James chapter 4, I want you to look down in your Bibles at James chapter 4 and verse number 13, the Bible reads, go to now ye that say today or tomorrow we will go into such a city and continue there a year and buy and sell and get gain whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow for what is your life? It is even a vapor that appearth for a little time and then vanishes away for that you ought to say if the Lord will we shall live and do this or that and the first point I want to make on this passage right here is that the Bible is referring to our lives as just being like a vapor, just a little puff of smoke, right, it's here for a very brief period of time and the older you get the more you realize how fast time really does fly and just day after day time just continues to seem and you know in my years of life it seems like when you're younger you feel like you've got all the time in the world, you've just got nothing but time, I mean you could just do whatever and this is your perception of how things go but the older you get you realize man there is not enough time in the day, I need to get more things done, there's so many things I want to do, there's so much I want to accomplish and there's just not enough time to do it, your time is precious and you know what, time goes by at the same speed no matter how old or young you are, it's just your perception on how you view things, we need to be able to view the time and the Bible saying here our life, I mean whatever your lifespan is, your average lifespan, it's just like a vapor, it appears for a short time and in advance the way it's gone, we're not here for very long and this is implicating hey let's make use of the time that we have here because we're not here for very long, let's try to make the best use of our time and not just waste it so if you do end up in a situation where you can look back on your life where maybe you live a full life and you grow to be an old man or an old woman and you can look back on your life, you're not thinking why did I spend so much time doing this and doing that and going to movies and doing stupid stuff that I have nothing to show for it now, all this time I had and it was just invested in vanity, in just wastefulness and doing nothing, we ought to be able to look back on our life and say hey I accomplished this and I accomplished that and I led people to the Lord and I served the glory, I did good things so you can look back and say I actually completed something and did something with my life and my life had value, it's easy to get distracted and to get caught up in the things of this world and to just go off and do other things but you know what the things that this world has to offer are vanity, they hold no eternal value and one of the other lessons that we can learn from James 4 here real briefly is that in the context he's not as much focused on your life being a vapor but the greater teaching here is he's talking to people who are saying oh yeah today or tomorrow we're going to go to CD and just kind of bragging as if they had already done these things before they even doing them and assuming that they have the time to do them, they say well no if the Lord will we're going to go and do this stuff and we need to let this sink in right is that don't put off service to the Lord especially like younger kids like oh I've got my whole life you know I'm going to go and do this now and I'm going to do that and I'm going to have fun and I'm going to do all these things and then later on I'm going to get serious later on I'm going to go and do soul winning later on I'm going to do things that matter and are meaningful but right now I just want to just not do anything and just think about myself. That's a bad attitude to have for many reasons but one of them we see here is that you don't know you know what shall be on the morrow you don't know what the next day is going to bring. People die at all ages people breathe their last breath accidents tragedies happen all the time from the womb all the way up to you know an aged person you never know people are losing their lives every day in their various ages so you can't just assume just because things may and you know you may be healthy you may have everything going for you right now no problems whatsoever you don't know what tomorrow is going to bring you don't know if some crazy person driving on the road here is going to slam into you head on and then you're you're gone or you die of a heart attack or whatever it happens unexpectedly so we need to treat our life as being precious we need to treat our time here on earth as being precious and one of the reasons for that go back to first Corinthians chapter three is because what we do in this life actually matters it actually means something I'm preaching to a room full of people who are saved people who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you know what thank God for that praise the Lord for his mercy praise the Lord for the free gift of salvation that you didn't have to work for you didn't have to do anything for that even if you lived an entire life of sin but you put your trust and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you that he will save you and he does save you and you have eternal life and praise God for that that you're going to heaven that you're going to you're going to receive of the Lord that free gift of eternal life however it's way better if you can get saved earlier than maybe on your deathbed right even though he does save you and it's much better to be in heaven as opposed to being in hell but just because you're saved it doesn't mean that everything just stops there okay we have this people this concept of like everything being equal and and sometimes I think the influence comes from like a socialist and communist type of an attitude of just thinking like oh everything needs to be and you know this is taught to the kids from a young age with the Barney and the you know what I don't even know what's what's really out there now that's pushing this type of thing where everyone needs to just be equal everything needs to be fair you know what it's not all it's not life isn't always equal and fair and when we're talking about fair you know you can have two different definitions of it when I say it when I'm using disparagingly you know teaching children about being fair it's just saying oh well it doesn't matter what they do what you do you all just gonna get the same whatever right that's not fairness but that's what people want to redefine fair to be is just oh well everyone just gets the same amount of everything no how about the person who does the work and the person who's doing good and the person who's doing right they're gonna get more than the person who's not right and getting a just recompense or reward for what you're doing and because that is what God is going to do with us and in first Corinthians chapter three we see a reference here what I believe a reference to the judgment seat of Christ because there's gonna come a day and and we're not gonna turn there but you can look in second Corinthians chapter five talks about the judgment seat of Christ where you're gonna be standing before the Lord and everyone's gonna be judged on their works now the judgment according to your works at the judgment seat of Christ is not to get into heaven because obviously being saved has nothing to do with our works it's a free gift but God at the second resurrection or at the resurrection when when we are when Jesus Christ comes back and we receive our glorified bodies we are gonna appear before the judgment seat of Christ and we are gonna receive for the things that were done in our bodies so this life the things that we do and that the way that we spend our time does matter because there's going to be a recompense there's gonna be a reward for what you've done and let's look down here at first Corinthians chapter three we start reading again in verse number eight the Bible reads now he that planteth and he that waterth are one and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labor so is everything gonna be equal no you're gonna receive according to your own labor now is God gonna is got a respecter of persons no if P2 people work the same amount and do the same amount of labor it doesn't matter who the individual is they will be rewarded accordingly and equally because it doesn't matter who the person but the labor that you do does matter it's not just like you know even if someone gets saved and then they die like the thief on the cross he's not gonna have a bunch of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ he's not just gonna it's not it's not gonna be the same as the guy who got saved maybe at a young age and serve the Lord faithfully every day of his life or every week of his life you know whatever and and was doing a lot for you know that guy's gonna get a lot more and that's right and that's fair and that's what the Bible teaches we're gonna receive according to his own labor verse number nine for we are laborers together with God and you know after a person gets saved that's not the end that's the beginning we're laborers together with God God wants to work with us he wants to use us as his laborers as his servants says ye are God's husbandry you know someone to practice husbandry what are they doing they're they're they're raising animals to help do work right like the oxen that's gonna plow a field we are like God's oxen where is workhorse where is mules where are those those that husbandry to go out and do the work of the Lord and he's gonna work with us he doesn't just leave us alone he's gonna come he's gonna work with us but he that's what he wants us to do we're to be laborers together with God year God's husbandry year God's building according to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation in another build it there on but let every man take heed how he buildeth there upon for other foundation can no man lay then that is laid which is Jesus Christ so he's talking about you know I've laid the foundation when Paul goes out and he gets people saved he brings the gospel of Jesus Christ that's the foundation you get saved we were born again you have a foundation that you have a rock of Jesus Christ that you are building there upon see people that just have the foundation they're still saved they're going to heaven right amen the foundation is laid it's done it's there and you know you can't remove the foundation it's set in stone it's it is there but how you build on that foundation is up to you that's why he said I've laid the foundation another man build it there on so other people are building on that foundations like hey I went through I preach the gospel these people are getting saved there's that foundation where it's been laid that's set but I'm moving on I've got a you know it's up to you to determine what are you gonna build on that foundation what are you gonna do with your life how are you gonna spend your time what are you going to build are you going to build things that last or are you going to build things that don't last that are just going to be burned up things that just don't really matter that well using materials that won't last verse number 11 so verse number 12 says now if any man build upon this foundation good excuse me gold silver precious stones wood hay stubble every man's work shall be made manifest so notice verse 12 says building and it's giving that imagery of building on a foundation using different materials right if you're using gold and silver to build up or precious stones versus wood hay and stubble now all of those materials you can use to build right so if any man build upon his foundation but then it says in verse 13 every man's work shall be made manifest so the building materials are being associated with the work that you do so whatever work you're doing in this life whatever work you're doing after you get saved is what you're building with the work shall be made manifest means gonna be made known what did you do for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is this is all imagery and symbolic i don't believe that when you stand before the judgment of christ you're literally going to see like a wood house and stubble and then like this fire come and burn it up right that's not the point the point is that it's trying to show you that when you're using those types of materials of wood hay and stubble if you're going to try something by fire that stuff's going to be burned up and disintegrate and go away and be turned into ash and turned into nothing right it's going to be gone it's going to be like yeah but look at how great i build this thing i've made this huge tower right but if it's just made out of out of wood hay and stubble the fire is going to destroy it i mean think about like you know if you make something out of legos you can make like this really cool big tall tower like man but then all it takes is for one two-year-old to come by and you know knock it over and it's gone and all that work that you just did building that lego thing is destroyed right if you wanted to build something that's going to last longer you're going to use some type of concrete or stone right i mean you want to build something that's going to last and that's where the the the contrast here is between the wood hay and stubble and the gold silver precious stones because if you're going to burn gold silver precious stones yeah the gold or silver may melt but it's still going to be there so you should still have exactly the same amount of what you started with is still it still retains through the fire and in fact with gold and silver it just gets purified and and better when you try it through the fire get rid of the dross right that's something that remains and it's something that's valuable and something that's going to continue on and that's the why this is being brought up so he says if in verse 14 when your works are tried by fire if any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward so when your works are tried when you're standing before the judgment of christ and all the works that you've done in your life are tried the bible says you're going to receive a reward for whatever remains everything you've done anything that was good anything that was valuable to to the lord anything that's valuable to god that you've done with your life and it's work okay work that you've done labor not how you felt in your heart not thoughts that you may have had that were good thoughts work i said but god knows my heart he does know your heart and your intentions matter but he's judging your works he's not judging you know how you felt about things he's judging what did you actually do you were here for a time what did you do at the time here who did you reach who did you impact because you know what matters to god are souls souls matter how are you impacting people that is what we need to be focused on you know unfortunately people focus on physical things on property on money on things that ultimately like the woodhand stubble they're going to burn up that's right you know the old adage you can't take it with you you can't when you die anything that you accumulate here that's physical on this earth you can't take with you but praise the lord that there is an afterlife there is something afterwards and souls of men souls continue forever souls are something that is everlasting inherently the soul of a person and the impact that you can have on individual souls going forward and being able to one lead other souls to christ so that they can spend eternity with the lord as opposed to being punished in hell but also then impacting souls that are already saved to do more and to reach other people right and to just do even more and to do that labor and that work to help other people out those are all extremely valuable things in the eyes of the lord and those are the types of things that we're going to receive rewards for now everyone here i'm sure would agree with me saying do any of us deserve rewards when you think about being a sinner and deserving of hell no we you know we feel like i don't deserve anything but god exemplifies his free gift of salvation and exalts it so much by saying it you know no matter how much work you do none of it's going to going to be applied towards your salvation at all which is why he gives us a reward for the work that we've done so anything good that you do any work that you do he says i'm going to pay you for that because salvation was free but i don't want you to think in any way that you've sort of offset the price of your salvation that's already bought and paid for so any good work you do i'm just going to reward you for that and that's you know and that's good news for us it's another motivator as well you know there's lots of reasons that we should be motivated to do good but one of those reasons is to receive a reward of god right that that when you do the hard because it is hard work because there is labor in serving the lord and there's sacrifices you're going to need to make in order to serve god and and it's going to be sometimes you know um it's it's it's not going to be easy on your schedule it's not going to be easy on your sleep or whatever some things are going to make you uncomfortable to do but it's all going to be worth it because god is going to give you a reward for it verse 15 says if any man's work shall be burned he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire and the title of my sermon this morning is wood hay and stubble because remember when i talk about redeeming the time and making the best use of your time and while wood hay and stubble inherently aren't necessarily bad things there's nothing wrong with sticks and wood you know i mean we have houses that are made out of wood there's nothing wrong with it except it's just doesn't hold any real value and that's what's being done here we're not even this isn't even necessarily talking about sin right so when we're thinking about our lives and we're thinking about well how can i redeem my time how can i view my life and and the things that i do so that i can have as much value at the end of my life you know it's not just focusing on well what am i doing that's sinful how about just what am i doing because the way that you spend your hours a day you know you only have so much time to accumulate rewards and to do things for the lord and that's what we want to focus on turn if you would to luke chapter 10 i'm going to give you an example from the scripture of what i believe is is an example of wood hay and stubble and this is a the story with with martha and mary now nothing that martha or mary are doing in this story is wrong at all and they're they're actually you know considered good things that are being done here but there's a difference between the things that have more value and the things that are needful versus the things that are not look at verse number 38 in luke chapter 10 the bible reads now it came to pass as they went that he entered into a certain village and a certain woman named martha received him into her house and she had a sister called mary which also sat at jesus feet and heard his word but martha was cumbered about much serving and came to him and said lord dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone bitter therefore that she helped me and jesus answered and said unto her martha martha thou art careful and troubled about many things but one thing is needful and mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her and you know i think there's a lot of things that can be learned from just this real short story here but one of the things that jesus says to martha he says that thou are careful and troubled about many things and we want to be careful that we're not so troubled about so many things that it distracts us from some of the most important things right this is something we see with martha now is it bad that she's serving and ministering especially to to jesus and other people no no no it's good and he's not even saying that she shouldn't be serving or she shouldn't be helping but she's she's she's elevated that so much that when jesus is actually you know you want to serve people and help people out but when you've got jesus there and he's teaching you know it's sometimes it's time to just stop with all the other work and to just come and sit and receive at jesus feet and receive what he has to give right and that is what's needfully saying you know what mary is doing here is more important she's receiving she's listening she's learning she's spending her time close to jesus you know as opposed to just being cumbered and troubled with all these other things that are going on it's easy to get distracted in this life it's easy to get distracted with things that aren't sinful it's easy to get caught up in work and in other things and you say oh man i've got all these chores around my house and i've got this breaking and that breaking and come over to my house we've got things breaking all over the place there's floors and doors and you know hedges and whatever there's all kinds of things all kinds of stuff that if i wanted to i could just spend every waking hour just repairing and fixing and doing things and you can say well is there anything wrong with that no there's nothing wrong with it anything sinful about you know doing all the things that you can do to to maintain stuff but if that's what you just just focus on you're going to ignore the more important things right and you could leave out the things that really matter in this life because i can if i decided to spend my say you know what i can't prepare sermons i can't go soul winning i can't be praying and reading my bible because man have you seen my house i've got to fix this and this and and i could spend my whole life doing that type of thing and i could get my yard so nice and there's not one you know one weed is gonna pop up is gonna be gone right before before you even see it yeah i'm gonna get that done and you can and you can have everything looking so nice and so pretty and so perfect and clean and then you're gonna die and at the end of your life there's gonna be like well let's see what you did with your life here's all of this work that you did because you were busy you did a lot of work right it'd be a lot of work to do that stuff it's not like you're just lazy and doing nothing you actually worked you actually were building on your foundation unfortunately all of that building if that's how you're spending your life is all wood hay and stubble that's right and just gonna be burned up who's gonna care about all that stuff when you get to heaven now again don't get me wrong i'm not saying that to some degree to some level you know i don't think you should just allow yourself to live in filth and in shambles and you know like you should you should care about your environment surroundings and family and things like that but it has its place right and it needs not to take the priority over the things that truly matter in your life and this is why we all need to look at our time that we're spending and say how am i spending my time and i started off saying you know even things like entertainment is not a bad thing i'm not saying you could never do anything fun or have any you know way to to kind of relieve stress just take a look at where is all of your time being spent right i mean if jesus were to show up like he did with martha and mary's house he shows up to your house it's more important to be right there with jesus and to learn say what do you what what can i learn from you what can i get from you what you know what as opposed to just going around and doing this and doing that and doing all these other things you say yeah you can have that stuff going on but the majority of time ought to be spent with jesus doing the right thing turn if you go to revelation chapter two because just as it's just as easy it is it is personally to get distracted with other things and to start getting involved and just spending all of your time doing stuff other than what's really going to be valuable and what's really going to get gain rewards at the end of your life not just on an individual level but on a church level we have the same thing and in revelation chapter two we're going to see revelation two and three as warnings to the various churches that existed during this time and these letters were sent out and these are all churches that god considered to be legitimate churches right they were they were churches that god says hey they have a candlestick they've got you know an angel that that is that is helping and trying to be uh guiding the churches in these various places but with most of them he's saying hey if you don't repent you're not i'm not going to consider your church as a church you're not i'm not going to consider your church anymore i'm going to take away a candlestick out of his place uh let's look at what it says here in revelation two verse number one to the church of eves is unto the angel of the church of eves is right these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks i know thy works in thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear them which are evil and thou has tried them which say they are apostles and are not and has found them liars and has borne and has patience and for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted so is this a church that's working you better believe i mean how many times you see i know your works i know your labor i know you've born you've been bearing things you've been bearing burdens you've had patience you're dealing with things and for my name's sake has labored and has not fainted you're working they're working hard there's a lot of work going on at the church of ephesus here a lot of work but notice what he says he says nevertheless so in spite of all of this in spite of all this work i know all that's going on i know you're making good stands i know you're trying people they say they're apostles or not you're you're wise you're able to spot people who are deceivers and liars you know you're on your game in that regard you're doing a lot of work he says but i still have somewhat against you because i was left thy first love remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do the first works or else i will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent so the warning is if you don't go back to the first love if you don't go back to the first works i'm going to remove your candlestick in spite of all of this other work that you're doing now how many times you mentioned labor working like three or four times in those two verses but what is his problem with his problem is with the first works so with all this work that they're doing they've left off the first work they've left off the most important work that he's saying if you're not doing this i'm going to remove your candlestick let that sink in with how busy you may feel and all the things you may be laboring with and say look i'm not a lazy person good amen because you ought not to be slothful you ought not to be lazy the bible you know is very clear about that not to be a sluggard okay you ought to be busy you ought to be working it's better than not working at all but at the same point what are you working on what are you working for what are you working with these things matter too and we don't ever want to lose sight of the most important things when he's talking about the first love first word i believe he's talking about soul winning that is the first love that is the first work and you know love and works are going together there that first love that first work of the church is to go out and reach the lost and you think about churches that may have good doctrine they may be able to spot the phonies they may be doing a lot of stuff and keeping themselves real busy and being real active and they've got active congregation and church members man i'm involved with this and i'm involved with that and i'm doing this but they're not doing any evangelism any soul winning and it's like hey look it's great that you've got these programs and you're doing things and people are keeping real busy and you're not doing wicked things and you're not doing sinful things and you're laboring and God can see all that labor that you're doing but he's saying you've gotten so caught up in everything else you forgot about the most important thing you've gotten distracted you've gotten off point and you know in the christian churches or do you know baptist churches are doing this when they start building schools right and and and building other programs and building all this stuff and now that's where their finances are going and that's what they're pushing and that's what they're promoting and get your kids and you know it's like hold on a second are you going out and actually seeking and saving that which is lost are you going out and preaching the gospel of jesus christ like i know you're real busy with all this administrative stuff and all the school stuff but don't forget the first works because if you do god's saying i'm going to remove your candlestick out of his place i'm not i'm no longer going to even regard you as being a church that i'm going to try to work with and try to help and try to try to be you know be with you to do good he's saying i'm just going to move on turn if you would to act chapter six because this is a problem that we saw in revelation chapter two the church of evidence is i believe it was a real it was a very large church it was a very big church and what happens especially as churches grow is that it becomes easier i think to get distracted with other things going on and you know from my perspective you may not all have to deal with this something i have to deal with and i have to keep myself right on too so i preach on sermons like this this applies to me as much if not more to everyone else because there's a lot of administration and things that go on with the church a lot of programs i want to do a lot of things i want to see done but i also need to be careful not to get caught up in everything else to where it's like oh no i can't do any soul winning and that's why if i have to do something different on sunday i'm going to go solely on a different day of the week because i can't forget to do that i mean i can't just leave that obviously i don't have time for that i've got too many other things to do and to me as much as anyone else okay same thing same boat but in acts chapter six we see here as the church in jerusalem grows um verse number one of act six the bible reads and in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplied so there's a lot of growth right of reaching a lot of people the disciples multiplied there arose a murmuring of the grecians against the hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration the widows that were supposed to be cared for by the church hey there's this daily work that's going on of supporting these widows and helping them with their needs and you know providing for them and you know they have no one else to help them out so the church is responsible and obligated to help them with these things the church has grown so much that the greeks are saying hey you know maybe the hebrew women who have been around for a long time it's already been established and part of the pattern that they're going to be taken care of but they said no we've got all these women that are widows that that need help that you know so they're they start murmuring oh and you know there's nothing being done here and uh so then it says here verse two then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them and said it is not reason that we should leave the word of god and serve tables so what they're saying is there's something more important that we need to be working on right now that we're not going to leave the word of god now it's not that this work doesn't need to be done it is work that's that's that is important it needs to happen it needs to be done they're not saying well no forget it you're just not going to be taken care of they say but we can't leave the job that we're doing right now to go and serve tables this is not reason it doesn't make sense for us to go and stop what we're doing and do this which again and this is where the church is able to help out and people are able to expand and get into other positions because if you've got only a handful of people that have to do all of the work that's going to consume all of their time so you have a really let's see thousands of people in a church and only a handful of staff of people who are able to just you know just well i have to we have to do this and we have to do this you know it's going to eat up all of your time so you're not able to do the more important things which is why then they just get more people to help so when you're able to distribute the workload among the people then there's more time you can spend with other things that's why i've been asking for help and i thank you for everyone that does help and for with the cleaning and all the other tasks that just need to be done in order for our church to function and i've had lots of people help out and that is a huge blessing but that's the only way that i'm going to be able to do other things and be able to read more and study more and be able to provide more for you and be able to keep myself doing the most important things is when we can have other people helping out and doing some of the other tasks that yes while they need to be done you don't want to have one person just focus on doing all of that stuff and then not able to do the things that really are important and we see that here in acts six so he says in verse three wherefore brethren look ye out among you seven men of honest report full of the holy ghost and wisdom who we may point over this business but we will give ourselves continually to prayer into the ministry of the word this is how they handle the situation it would have been easy for them to just say okay well i'll just do that job and we just need you know because it all needs to be done and it wouldn't be a bad job but ultimately it's not gonna you know it's not the most important thing right and this is what we need to be able to balance our time with and one of the things i brought it up a little bit earlier but turn if you would to matthew chapter six i think one of the biggest problems for people in general with getting their priorities right and and doing time management revolves around money in one form or another right money well we need to have more money for this we need to have more money for that we need to have more money to you know money can be a big distraction now am i saying that money is is just not important at all no obviously you need money to survive you need money to buy clothing you need money to buy food you need you need to have it there's there's a essential aspect of having some you know the the the resources to be able to to live and survive right it is necessary but we need to be careful with our priorities to make sure that we're not focusing so much just on making money and forgetting the important things look at matthew chapter six verse number 19 the bible reads lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal so the things that you have here the physical objects the physical things that you may spend a bunch of time laboring for and working for hey i mean someone could just come and steal that stuff someone could break into your house right now while you're at church and take whatever things you've accumulated and whatever you've got locked up in your safe and what you know whatever right it can all just be eaten up or your house can burn up and burn to the ground and then you don't have any of that stuff you're saying you know what you ought to be focused on how about laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven because the treasures the rewards that you rack up for yourself in heaven you don't lose those you're not going to lose those no thief is going to come through and steal those rewards those are sure those are going to those are kept in a vault that no one no one can can get to right and that makes the most sense when you'll be spending your time and working and laboring for something how about something you know that that retirement plan that's really going to pay off and you're not going to have to worry about losing it in a bad economy because god's economy is perfect verse number 21 the reason for laying up your treasure in heaven also is for where your treasure is there where your heart be also so if you spend your time laboring to be rich and laboring for goods and laboring for just to have accumulated a lot of wealth and a lot of money and a lot of things your heart's going to be in that when you're when you're focused on the money and the things well now you're going to be more worried about the things than you are on the people on other things that matter right so if you're focused on the heavenly things your heart's going to be with it too it says in verse 22 the light of the body is the eye if therefore thine eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness no man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other you cannot serve god and mammon money that's what mammon is it's physical goods money you can't serve both you're gonna serve one or serve the other you're gonna have your heart on money you're gonna have your heart on god you but you can't have it simultaneously on both you've got to choose what is important and when you choose to serve god you may or may not be blessed with finances but that doesn't matter because you know what your heart's not in it anyways it doesn't matter to you it's like who cares and it's funny i was talking to my wife about this from you know again with my perspective maybe 20 years ago the things that have just happened recently because my career my my my worldly career that i have outside of this church is going really well and it's like that would have been extremely exciting 20 years ago for me it would have been like oh man this is great and you know it's real excited and now it's just kind of like that's not whatever right yeah i mean it's it's nice but at the same time like i don't want that to distract me from the most important things because that's just one more opportunity to say oh well you can do this and now you can make this much more money and now you can you know and have all these extra responsibilities like i don't want that i need to work and i'm going to work hard at what i'm doing and i'm gonna i'm gonna you know work as if i'm working for the lord at the times when i'm at work i think that's biblical and what we ought to do but that's not where my heart is my heart is in serving the lord and and you know we need to be careful with that because it's it's so easy to be distracted and for the shiny money the shiny gold and silver and the shiny things and the the shiny objects to to catch your eye and to start going after those things especially when doors open up and opportunity oh man hey look at you can have this except it's just going to eat up all of your time and you're going to start chasing after that and if you achieve it you're going to find yourself with an empty feeling because it's not going to be all that you built it up in your mind to be it's not going to be as cool as you thought whatever and that's one thing i've learned over time is it you know as slowly we've gotten in a better place financially it's just like all these things that you might have looked at things that you might have looked at when you were poorer and then you finally achieve it's like it's just not all it's cracked up to be it really isn't i don't care what car you have i don't care what thing you have when you get it it's just not that great and the reason why i say that is because don't be deceived into making those things your focus you're going to be disappointed not just in the object you're going to be disappointed then that why did i waste so much time pursuing this because you can't get that time back no man can serve two masters for either you will hate the one and love the other else you hold the one despise the other you can serve god and mammon look at verse 25 therefore i say unto you take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on is not the life more than meat and the body than raiment behold the follows of the air for they sow not neither do they reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly father feed at them are you not much better than they which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature and why take ye thought for raiment consider the lilies of the field how they grow they toil not neither do they spin and yet i say unto you that even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these wherefore if god so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow's cast in the oven shall he not much more clothe you oh ye of little faith therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewithal shall we be clothed for after all these things do the gentiles seek referring to gentiles is just the world right this is what the world's seeking after for your heavenly father know it that you have need of all these things but seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you take therefore no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself sufficient unto the day is evil thereof what's he saying he's saying seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness god knows you need all that stuff so we don't need the stress over the money over the finances you don't need to stress over where am i gonna get my next meal now is he saying don't do any work and don't labor no no he's not just saying well just have faith and don't do anything and god's just gonna bring a basket down from heaven and then you'll be able to eat but he is saying that god's gonna take care of you so if you're doing what's right we don't need to be distracted and and go off into you know into just being so worried about all this stuff that like i need to drop everything and and just do this other stuff he's saying no seek first the kingdom of god and his righteousness make this a priority make serving god a priority god knows you have needs god can see your needs god made you he created you he understands what it is to be a human being and he knows what we need he's taking care of the animals don't you think he's gonna care about you even more than the animals but look at what he's doing with them they all get fed they don't have to store up they don't have to stock up they don't even have to build these storehouses and do all this stuff god still takes care of them don't get so focused on all these oh man but i just gotta make sure i've got all this money saved aside and i got all this food stocked up and i've got it don't let that be a distraction for you focus on serving the lord god'll take care of the rest now you still work you still do what you need to do but you don't you know that's not that's not where your focus is turn if you would to haggai chapter one is the last place i can have you turn is haggai if you seek first the kingdom of god you can know that god will take care of you we know that jesus was teaching that we see that it's a fact god will take care of you just have to have the faith to say okay well lord i'm gonna seek you first i'm gonna make sure that i'm going to church i'm gonna make sure i'm so i'm making sure i'm doing the things that you want me to do that i'm not gonna allow these other things to get in the way of serving you that that is my priority that is my priority over any other physical thing and then god will make sure the rest happens but if you don't if you decide not to take that mindset and not to take that attitude you say well no no no i need to make sure that my house and my stuff is taken care of first and then i'll go and serve the lord if that's your mindset you know what god's gonna do he's gonna make sure that you never achieve what you're trying to achieve when you're putting yourself first above him that's right and we have we have an example of this in haggai look at chapter number one verse number two the bible reads thus speak at the lord of hosts saying this people say the time has not come the time that the lord's house should be built so he's talking about this people here he's addressing they're saying you know what it's not time to build god's house it's not time for that you know that that's just going to come later now now is not the time to build the house of lord verse number three then came the word of the lord by haggai the prophet saying is it time for you oh ye to dwell in your sealed houses and this house lie waste he's talking about the house of the lord you're saying well you've got your nice houses and your nice roof over your head and it's time for you is it time for you to just go and spend your time in your nice houses and the house of god just just lying waste in disrepair and just just neglected verse five now therefore thus saith the lord of hosts consider your ways and this is this is another theme of the sermon this morning consider your ways because we're evaluating our time we're evaluating how we spend our time we're trying to make most use of our time we're trying to view our lives in a biblical way where we understand that god's going to have rewards for us that wood hay and stubble are just going to be burned up anyways consider your ways are you investing too much time and too much energy and resources into things that don't matter into your own sealed houses and leaving the house of god in disrepair how about just just your own spirituality is that just are you just leaving that off to the side consider your ways look at verse number six you have so much and bring in little you eat but you have not enough you drink but you're not filled with drink you clothe you but there is none warm and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes he's saying yeah you're working real hard i mean you're you're going out and you're sewing a lot but you know what you're not really reaping much are you i think there might be a reason for that yeah you're focused on all the sewing but you're not getting much you're focused that you know you're eating but you never really feel satisfied you're drinking but again you're not really being satisfied you don't quite have enough you're putting clothes on but you know it's not really keeping you warm you don't you're not quite having enough of that either and you're earning wages i love this this illustration you're earning wages to put into a bag with holes right so saying like you got this sack of money and you're like man i'm getting all this money you're putting in your sack but you don't realize there's just like there's holes in it so your money is just just falling out and you're just losing it just being completely wasted and gone and it's not even being applied to something you i mean it's just it's just being wasted and he reiterates verse seven thus said the little host consider your ways and you said that it wasn't time to repair the house of lord you said well you know you're just focusing on yourself but look at everything that you're doing and it's not being blessed in fact not only is it not being blessed it's being cursed because there's so a lot of seed but it's just not coming to fruition they're making the money but they're just it's just being lost and it just seeming like like where is it all going what it's disappearing what's happening to it verse eight go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house and i will take pleasure in it and i will be glorified said the lord you looked for much and lo it came to little and when you brought it home i did blow upon it so he's saying you've got all the stuff and when you actually bring it in he's like i'm just blowing on it and blowing it away and making sure that the works of your hands aren't gonna aren't gonna happen why why said the lord of hosts because of mine house that is waste and ye run every man into his own house why because they weren't putting god first because they didn't put the priority on the house of god they didn't put priority on the things that deserve the priority on the things that are needful on the things that we ought to be focused on because when you focus on the wrong things and spend your time and waste your time on all this other garbage and nonsense in your house and all and you're not paying attention to the house of lord you're not paying attention to god's ways it's all going to come to nothing so i'm going to leave you with this it's foolishness it's foolishness to say as we saw in james we started with oh today or tomorrow or you know what next year after i buy my new house and i get my new car and everything's settled then i'm really going to focus on church let me do all this other stuff first let me get everything under control here then i'll start making it to more church services foolishness because in your efforts to do all that other stuff god's going to be blowing on your work you've got your heart in the wrong place you got your eyes set on the wrong things you're building wood hay and stubble and you know what it's all just going to go away and be brought to nothing you may enjoy it temporarily but you're going to look back on your life and go man my life was just a vapor and why did i waste so much time let's focus this month on trying to redeem our time and understand the value that it has and get our minds just refocused reset right praise the lord you're all still here right we're all still alive we have time so now let's reset our focus and get back focused on the right things no matter what you've done yesterday or last week or last month or last year let's get focused today and and move forward and say you know what i'm going to change some habits i'm going to get rid of some wastes of time the wood hay and stubble i want to build gold silver and precious stones let's bow our heads have a word of prayer dear heavenly father lord we thank you so much for all the all the wisdom that you've given us in the bible thank you for giving us the instruction that we need because we have such a short time here lord help us not to be wasteful with our time god we we want to serve you we're your husband we're your laborers your lord work with us and help us to do the things that are the most important help us to reach the loss with the gospel of jesus christ lord help us to be good examples and god help us just to uh to not be distracted with all the things and the cares of this world and and the deceitfulness of riches but help us to stay focused on the things that truly matters in jesus name we pray amen