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Hey, you're listening to Cut for Time, a podcast from Faith Church located on the north side of Indianapolis.  My name is Claire Kingsley.  And I'm Dan Breitwieser. Each week, one of us will sit down with the person who gave Sunday's sermon to discuss their message.  Cut for Time is a look behind the scenes of sermon preparation,  and they'll share with us a few things that we didn't hear from the sermon on Sunday. Thanks for listening. All right, Jeff, hey, it's cut for time. And it was our final sermon in the Ephesians series before we take a break for Advent. So you preached from Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 to 21. Would you just give us a brief overview from your sermon on Sunday? Yeah, sure. So we mentioned that this is kind of the third in a series in chapter five, where Paul has used this theme of walking as sort of a picture of our life, right? Cause we're heading in a certain direction. And Paul had said, walk in love as Christ loved us. Last week we saw how we were called to walk as children of light. And this week Paul says walk in wisdom. And then the section is really about what that looks like. And in contrast to kind of the culture that Paul was writing to, it wasn't wisdom as sort of some esoteric philosophy  or  things you could learn through pagan mystical practices.  It was walking in wisdom  by living a life led by God's spirit.  And that's really encouraging for us because it tells us that actually a life of wisdom and purpose is achievable. It's available to us. And so Paul talks about  What that walking in wisdom looks like that if wisdom is being led by the spirit? uh Here's kind of what that looks like and he starts with  the idea of  walking on purpose walking not as unwise but as wise and redeeming the time which  Is this  really again kind of an amazing statement because  Paul is saying Okay, there's all these forces that are working against you, but you can actually redeem  your time. It's not just something that you  have. It's something that you can actually invest  for purposes, to live for God's purpose. And then he goes on to say, uh beyond living intentionally in that way, he's giving us this interesting warning about not being drunk with wine, but being filled with the spirit. This interesting contrast, again, in his culture where  Sometimes  people were led to think that  you could sort of get in touch with the gods or  have ecstatic experiences by getting drunk and pulsing. Actually, the way to wisdom is not to lose control, but to  give yourself to the control of the spirit. Real wisdom is about not being controlled by something external, but by allowing ourselves to be led by the spirit. And then  in the next section, he talks about  what that actually kind of looks like. And this is passage of uh addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.  And he's pointing out that worship is not just vertical, it's horizontal.  When we gather in worship, we're called to actually build one another up, that our singing, our participation is actually strengthening one another and modeling faith for each other.  And then he's saying that's not just even a personal experience, not just a corporate experience, but  Personally, he's saying  our hearts are filled with worship  and  we're giving thanks to God in  a life of gratitude.  then finally, the most radical thing that would have just absolutely shocked everyone  in his culture, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.  A  really  wise, spirit-led life looks like humility.  And that was totally foreign and  radical in that... cultural environment where everything was built on hierarchy, who has power, who dominates, who's in control. And Paul says, actually the life of wisdom led by the spirit is about surrendering control and humbling ourselves to honor one another just as Jesus has  loved and served us.  it's this  amazing kind of picture of a very different way of thinking about uh life and thinking about what wisdom actually looks like.  Okay. Thank you, Jeff. So talk about something that you didn't have enough time for on Sunday.  Speaking of time, it's related to the concept of it's time.  You go tell us about more about that. Yeah.  So we talked a little bit about sort of the, the cultural, the way Paul takes concepts in the culture and both acknowledges them, relates to them, but wants people to understand, wants believers to understand how the gospel transforms them and really brings us into the full reality of what those kind of cultural ideas are about. And we talked a little bit about where wisdom comes from and the idea of drunkenness and letting go of yourself was a way to experience life. the one thing that really stood out that we didn't have time to get into is the whole idea of uh time itself  in the sense that,  you know, we understand when we talk about times and seasons  and  in the Greco-Roman world,  there was this  very strong idea that fates  or cycles of fortune, that the wheel of fortune would turn and sometimes you'd be up and sometimes you'd be down and   what you try to do is figure out auspicious moments, you know, to start a venture or to get married or to plant a crop or whatever, that maybe you could  try and figure out oh what the gods want you to do,  or  maybe even control them through astrology or magic. uh people would consult omens, you know, to try and discern the right moment to take action. We probably all have that idea, you know, of sort of uh the Roman priest  reading bird entrails or something to try and figure out uh when, know, what the gods are saying. And Paul is saying, look, you're not under those kinds of powers, right? Like  time is not controlled by uh unknown forces, by the wheel of fortune. It's not controlled by cosmic powers.  It's first of all, under the control of God, who is the Lord of heaven and earth. But in a oh amazing way, he's saying we actually have the ability to shape times and seasons ourselves by redeeming time through spirit-directed wisdom and obedience.  In other words, it's  not human sort of under the power of, you know, inexorable forces of uh seasons or fortunes or fate, but  we actually participate in God's redemptive work in the world by   using the time that God has entrusted to us  for his purposes. that's something that happens not just in even big decisions in our lives, but in all the little everyday moments, right? Like  it's not,  well, you know, I want to pray about  where I should go to college or who I should marry. mean, sure, those are  important, but we redeem the time  simply by making ourselves available for God to use us and reflect what he's like when we're dealing with uh a  difficult conflict in a marriage relationship or a disappointing exchange with someone or as we're parenting our kids or as we're, uh how we respond to the guy who cuts me off in traffic. There's all these opportunities every moment of our day to actually turn that moment into kind of a holy opportunity for Jesus to be reflected. And how I respond to those things  and whether I respond with faith and hope and patience and love or impatience and irritation and selfishness and self-seeking. So  this idea of redeeming the time is not even just about, um,  you know, the movement of fate or fortunes or, uh, starting ventures. It's really about how I'm living  my daily life and recognizing that it's ordained by God, and I have a significant role in it, that will either point me and others to Jesus in terms of how I redeem and use that time, or will head me in a different direction.  Speaking of redeeming time, something that you did mention in your sermon was just challenging us to find pockets of our day or week that  maybe is time that we should take back and redeem in a way.   And so you gave the example  of your morning time of doing scripture before phone, redeeming that those first, you know, 10, 15, 20 minutes of your day. um somebody asked what what book were you referencing when you were talking about these habits and this  this habit in particular? Yeah, I think in second hour, I mentioned that Joey had actually recommended this book to me, and I've heard other people. talk about it too. It's called The Common Rule  and it's  by Justin Early, E-A-R-L-E-Y.  And  the subtitle  just kind of tells you what the whole book is about, which is great. It's called Habits of Purpose for an Age of Distraction.  And Early's,  Justin Early's argument is that  the modern world, as he puts it, is kind of a machine for forming us  and forming us into anxious, busy people.  And yet we as followers of Jesus have the opportunity to redeem the time that God has entrusted to us in all kinds of ways. And uh early,  really drawing on a long Christian tradition of uh rules of life  and uh purposeful habits talks about uh habits that we can uh adopt to  either embrace  patterns to redeem the time or things we actually want to resist that are pulling us in the wrong direction for the sake of loving God and loving neighbor. So yeah, the example of uh scripture before phone  was a really good one that I resonated with. And  maybe  like a lot of us,  we may use our phones for our alarm clock, right? Like, I don't know how many of us still have the  you know, plug-in alarm clock.  But if you use your phone for alarm, that's fine. But just recognize that  of course there's a temptation to pick it up. And the first thing I'm going to do is what I'm going to check email. I'm going to see what happened, you know, who responded to me on social media. I'm maybe going to check my calendar for what I have to do. And even if it's not anything negative, it's just, uh, I'm, I'm  looking ahead to the day and I'm almost like mentally jumping into it before I've spent any time talking to God about those things, praying about those things.  ask him to orient my heart in a right way and ask him to help me  remember that this is a day that I want to live for him. In all those things that are out there and that are real, but if I just take the first five or 10 minutes to start with a simple prayer of thanking God for this day,  and  maybe even when I'm getting ready in the bathroom or wherever, or maybe I'm listening to uh audio Bible on my phone. uh or a really good podcast, or uh there's uh ways to even use our phones intentionally  that will help us redeem that time  in a way that's meant to  remind us of what we're trying to do and the direction we really want our lives to head. So that's just one example from  this book, The Common Rule by Early.  He talks about uh some other things  like making sure that I'm at least uh once a day eating with someone  that that it's uh in the process of just  nurturing, nourishing my body. need connection too. And it's a reminder that I'm built for community and people are blessing and I shouldn't just be on my own.  He talks about uh kneeling prayer three times a day. Now, whether you  think the kneeling part is important early kind of makes that argument, but  I think just even a short sentence prayer several times a day. It could just be a very simple  one or two sentence prayer.  there was a season when I was in a prayer group at work um early on in my corporate career.  And we just made a commitment that at  nine, 12 and three, we were just going to stop literally for like two to three minutes and just say a very simple prayer together. ah And we were all off in different parts of the building, but we just knew that we were all praying together and it helped re-center. It helps focus. helps you  remind yourself that you're dependent on Jesus. And there are other people who are trying to walk with him too and praying with you in that moment, even if you're not in the same place. Like that's a  great encouragement, right? So Earley's book is really good. know, whether or not anyone wants to pick it up.  It's got a lot of benefit to it, but the idea that we can redeem the time with purposeful habits to help shape us  into loving God and loving neighbor. And what things do I want to make sure I build into my life? What things do I maybe want to try and avoid?  The part that I also really like about this is  early is not necessarily giving us a whole bunch of extra things to do, right? Like I'm going to eat anyway. And he's just saying like, It's probably important for us that we need to do that at least once a day with someone else and  that I'm going to get up and I'm going to start my day with something. So  why not start it with intentional time centering myself on God's presence?  probably, yeah, it'd probably be good for me to limit my media consumption ah and  look at what I'm  building into my life in terms of sleep and healthy habits. And  it's really helpful. Really encouraging. um Habits of purpose for an age of distraction.  I just love that concept and that picture. Yeah, me too.  Something I appreciated about that book was his concept of the trellis and just saying that we all have our own habits. go about our day and we have our own things. But  if we aren't  growing in a specific direction, then we aren't  going to be as fruitful as we could be.  um or as purposeful. so setting up some  habits and boundaries specifically in the same way a trellis would help grow a plant, these habits would help grow us to be more like Christ. um And so,  yeah, anyways, I just,  like you said, it's things that you're probably already, you're spending your time on some of these things, but just being more intentional about it, making sure you're growing in the direction that you want to be.  Yeah, I love that. Because it's like the image of like climbing roses or,  you know,  we need a structure for our lives, right? Like we're growing in one direction or another, right? Like, is it intentional, purposeful growth, or am I just sort of taking whatever comes my way?  And the point is not the trellis. The point is the trellis, the habits are just tools for the purpose of helping us  grow more into the people that we and that Jesus want us to become. Exactly. All  right. So, Jeff, this was our last sermon before we head into the Advent series. um Would you just give us  a little preview  of  Advent or calling it Light in the Darkness um and tell us why we need this series right now  and what you're looking forward to  in this season? Yeah. Well, I'm glad you  pointed out that it's the last in our Ephesians series for a while.  Yes, true. Definitely coming. We're coming back to finish up the rest of Ephesians 5 and chapter 6  in January  after Advent and this whole section that we just did in uh 15 to 21 of chapter 5 the walk in wisdom led by the Spirit  Submitting to one another of reverence for Christ like that is the launching pad for the whole next section of Ephesians That's going to be about all the relationships uh in the family and husbands and wives and parents and children and how we relate as  bosses and workers and socially. ah so  we're going to hold off on that.  We'll kind of remind ourselves of where we've been when we come back in January. But yeah, I'm excited for this  Advent series that we're getting into called Light in the Darkness.  And  kind of the big idea behind it really is  it doesn't, you don't have to look hard or long to see that uh We're broken, the world is broken,  and there's just a lot of darkness in us and around us.  And maybe we've kind of felt that more this  last couple of years.  In any case, it's just a uh good reminder for us that we by nature are just, you know, we live in darkness and Jesus has come to shine light and to bring light  into the darkness, to bring hope and purpose and life.  So we're going to be going through this series  looking primarily at Isaiah's prophecies  of the Messiah who's going to come  and building around the traditional Advent themes of hope and love and joy and peace and how Christ brings those elements of hope and joy and love and peace as light into the darkness and not just for us, but then ultimately through us as we become people who can  experience hope in the middle of discouraging realities and then  be able to reflect that to other people  around us as well who can see all the darkness and are wandering and  maybe wondering if there is any hope in the darkness. Is there any peace in a world of chaos and conflict and hostility? And what if we were  people of peace because we have a deep rooted calm and assurance in our hearts because of who Jesus is and what he's done and what he's promised he's going to do. So  it's meant to be a series to  encourage us and give us hope and uh joy and peace in the middle of a lot of chaos and uncertainty and darkness in our world so that we can uh reflect that and offer that to other people. And we'll give like a little teaser preview. Claire, know you have been working on a special Advent gift for families in Faith Church that I'm really excited about because we've done different things for Advent over the years. And I think this year we've said You know, it's okay if it's  kind of simple and traditional and uncomplicated, but really meaningful. uh We don't need to add a lot more stuff to our schedules, but we could adopt a habit over this season of Advent that could help remind us of the light that Jesus shines into our lives and encourage one another  in our families and in our communities with that. So I'm excited for. getting to talk about that and introduce that to people this Sunday. So may it definitely be here on Sunday, because  I'm excited for everyone at Faith for  this Advent gift  that we hope will really be meaningful  for you over this coming month. Yeah, thanks, Jeff. Yeah, our prayer ah as I have been working on this project has just been that it blesses our people. uh  and blesses their walk with the Lord this season, uh draws them close and  is something that um they can  do with others.  you know, many of the, I know this is kind of, hard because people are listening and they don't exactly know what it is, but uh it will come, I promise. But something that is different about this practice than in previous years is we've done a devotional and that's really independent and it's between you and the Lord.  This is something that can be done on your own, but also can be  like inviting other people in. I imagine um we'll have a lot of people in our home  in the next month that  aren't just the six of us that aren't the Kingsley family.  But it's something that I would feel comfortable including somebody else in and showing them like, this is something that we do  around Advent. We  light a candle and we, you know, Then why? What does that represent? And why do we believe what we believe? And it might start some conversations. And if nothing else, it's sitting in a visible place that might start conversation  for somebody that you are hosting in the next month. So  there are a lot of different ways ah it could be used. There lot of ways I think that God could use it and bless your family and your household. And I'm just excited.  I'm excited to hear about it. And I'm praying for for people in that space.  Yeah, I love it. You put so much good thought into this. And I know you've had other people working on it with you, too. Yes, I totally have not done this on my own. Please.  The other part that I love is, like you said, I mean, I've gotten so much out of devotionals over the year. And of course, you know, there's scripture journals and podcasts. mean, there's a lot of great resources. And yet,  as good as all those things are, just as you were talking, it reminds me like they but they all kind of tend to be like mental internal things, right? Like,  which is good. But I love that there's like a physical embodied practice that we get to  take on with this gift. So you guys will get to find out what that is. And  I'm excited. I think it's really cool just in that level. Like it's meant to engage our minds, our hearts, our bodies, our voices,  like all of us  in this uh reflecting and thinking about light in the darkness. So I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. Me too. All right. Thank you for your time and happy Thanksgiving this week. Yeah. Thank you. You as well. And if anyone out there is listening and just a little, if you have a thought or you're inspired in any way, Thursday is not only Thanksgiving, it is Pastor Tom's birthday. 75th birthday. That's amazing, isn't it? Right? So in case anybody wanted to send him a card or a note or text or something. Happy birthday to Pastor Tom too. We're thankful for Pastor Tom. Yeah, we are. Thank you, Jeff. Thanks, Claire.  Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Cut for Time.  If you wish to submit questions to our pastors following Sunday's sermon,  you can email them to podcast at faithchurchindie.com  or  text them in to our Faith Church texting number  and we'll do our best to cover them in next week's episode.  If this conversation blessed you in any way,  we encourage you to share it with others.  We'll be back again next week.