Pastor Skip Heitzig guides us through First and Second Peter in the series Rock Solid.

Would you open your Bibles, please, to First Peter, chapter 4. We made it. How would you like to spend two years of your life making phone calls to people who aren't home? That's about as miserable as it can get, right? But did you know that time management experts tell us that we as Americans on average will spend two years of our life calling people back who never seem to want to pick up. That's a waste. We will also spend six months of our life at traffic lights waiting for them to turn green. Miserable. We'll spend eight months opening and reading junk mail. Now, when I read that, I thought, "Not this boy."

I don't even entertain junk mail; I just throw it away immediately. Now, I've thrown away bills before doing that, [laughter] but I kind of consider them junk mail sometimes. [laughter] And all told we will spend five years of our life waiting in line, grocery lines. Disneyland lines are five years by themselves. [laughter] Time. Time is something we're aware of. It's something we count. We have little devices on our wrists so that we can be on time. People appreciate it when the pastor ends on time. We mark it. We have increments of time: seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and months---all combined to make a year.

In our Western civilization we follow a solar calendar. There's 365 days in a year; or to be more precise 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, and 12 seconds; or if you prefer 8,766 hours; or if you prefer 525,949 minutes. Don't ask me about seconds. That's a year. You will have 79 of those in your lifetime. That's the average life span of the American, 79 years of time. I bring that up because one of the key thoughts of Peter in this paragraph of chapter 4 of his book is about time, because time is a gift. It's a gift, but it's an elusive gift.

When you're young you think you have time that will just go on and on, you have oodles of it, and you get a few years under your belt and you realize time moves quickly. It is thought by most Bible commentators that Peter has his own lifetime in mind as he writes these words, that he believes his martyrdom is right around the corner. In feeling that, he mentions in this paragraph "time" twice, because we're to be aware of it. Like Moses who wrote in Psalm 90, "Teach us to number our days, that we might gain a heart of wisdom." Think of time like a coin. I found a coin and I found a large one just for the sake of illustration. Your life is like this coin, that's time.

It's the only one you got. You decide where you're going to spend this. Don't let anybody spend it for you. This is your life, your time, for you to spend as you wish. But here's my admonition to you: don't just spend time, invest your time. Certainly don't waste time, and don't even spend time, but learn to invest your time. We even have a common phrase in our vernacular, we call it "killing time." "What did you do yesterday?" "Nothing, I was just killing time." What we mean by that is it was just sort of hanging out, doing nothing helpful or beneficial. But as Henry David Thoreau once said, "You can't kill time without injuring eternity." Time matters.

So in First Peter, chapter 4, time is one of the key thoughts of Peter. Here's another key thought, before you even read the text: the will of God. He also mentions that twice. So here's the overarching theme of this paragraph which we're about to read: In whatever time you have left, use it to do the will of God. Let's look at First Peter, chapter 4, verse 1 down to verse 6. "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he should no longer live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.

"For we have spent enough of our past lifetime," some translations simply say, "We've spent enough time," "doing the will of the Gentiles---when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

I titled this message with a question: "Are you just counting time or are you making time count?" Using what we just read I want to suggest four ways of really making time count. Whatever time you have left, there's four ways to make your time count. Number one: Resist sin. That sounds like something a preacher would say, "resist sin," but look at what Peter says. Verse 1, "Therefore, since Christ suffered in the flesh," he had just talked about the sufferings of Jesus, "arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who is suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin."

That little phrase "arm yourselves," is a military phrase. It's a military phrase of being prepared. Picture, if you will, a soldier putting on his gear and getting ready to go into battle. That's the idea of the phrase, "arm yourself." However, our preparation is to take place, not outwardly, as much as inwardly. Notice what it says, "Arm yourselves with the same mind." We would say, "Get your head in the game," "Get your mind in the battle," "Get mentally prepared for the fight you're about to get into." That's the idea. For the believer, the battle always, always begins in the realm of the mind. Before it goes anywhere else it's in our thought life.

That's why in chapter 1, if you recall, Peter in verse 13 said, "Gird up the loins of your mind," be prepared mentally. Behavior scientists for decades have told us that human behavior is determined by the subconscious mind. The writer of Proverbs agrees in Proverbs 23 verse 7, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." So, what kind of a mind do we need? Now listen to this: we need a militant attitude toward sin. We need an aggressive stand toward sin. We can never get used to it. We can never grow comfortable with it. We need a militant attitude toward sin, or as Paul put it in Romans 6, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, that you should obey its desires."

Hey, if you don't make time to battle sin, sin will take time away from your life. We should resist sin not only because of what it does to us, we should hate sin and resist it because of what it did to him---it killed him. Notice what it says, "Therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh." When I look at the cross---and this is the time of the year where we march toward Good Friday and then Easter, and then we're contemplating the cross and all that Jesus did for us. When I look at the cross, I am looking at what my sin did to my Savior. I need to arm myself with the same mind that Jesus had.

What mind did Jesus have when he came here? When Jesus came to earth, he had a militant attitude toward sin as proven by his steadfast movement toward the cross. He came to deal with sin. He came to die on a cross. No wonder it says in the gospel of Luke, "Jesus set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem," like a soldier marching into battle. That's where he was going to deal with the problem of sin. So we have a relationship with sin. We all know it. We all struggle with it. In that relationship what should be our goal? What is the ultimate aim? It's in the text, the answer that I'm asking this question about is right in the text.

But let me ask you: What is our ultimate aim and goal when it comes to sin? It's to stop doing it? It's to cease from it? Look what it says, "For he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." That is my ultimate goal. News flash---ain't gonna happen on this earth, not gonna be fully done conquering that problem till you and I get into glory. However, if ever there was a battle worth fighting, it's this battle. If ever there was a fight that you need to be engaged in, it's this fight. You've heard it said before, "Choose your battles carefully." Well, here's a battle you need to fight and you need to win.

You need to win more of these battles than lose them. As God spoke to Cain he said, "Sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." James in the New Testament said, "Resist the devil." Jesus to the twelve apostles: "Pray that you enter not into temptation." And then he taught us to pray, "Deliver us from the evil one." All that is resistance talk. It's military language. Fight it. Resist it. Push it away. Win the battle. Now, just a quick note before we move on: suffering will help you do that. If there's another benefit to throw out and say, "Suffering is good for this," this is it.

Because suffering---you know this to be true---gets your attention like nothing else. And when it has your attention, it cuts away things that are worthless, things that are superfluous, certain activities you got engaged in. Suddenly when there's a huge amount of suffering, that stuff doesn't mean that much to you. It tends to get cut away. We all have rough edges and God uses suffering to transform and smooth and temper our lives. So resist sin. You want to make time count? Put that on the palate, resist sin. Here's a second: Relish God's will. If the first was negative, this was positive. Resist sin, that's negative; relish or enjoy God's will, that's positive.

Verse 2, "That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God." Now he gets right to the heart of what you and I will do with the rest of your time. How will you spend the rest of your time? Let me put it to you this way: the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God. Again, the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing will of God. Let God's will be your lifelong pursuit. You want an adventurous journey? You want a satisfying journey? Make sure the will of God is number one in your pursuit.

To quote what Jesus himself said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God . . . and all these things will be added unto you." Did you know that the will of God for your life is the most important and exciting thing about your life? You might be good at a lot of things, but the most exciting thing about your life is when you discover what God wants from it. Somebody once said there are two most important days in a person's life: the day he is born, number one; and number two, the day he finds out what he's born for. What does God want out of my life? Discover that and make that your pursuit, your ambition.

Now, let me just throw out a warning here. A lot of times when you say these words, "Find the will of God for your life," people, Christians especially, like to mysticize that. They think you discover God's will by sort of sitting in the corner and just humming and getting an impression. "Maybe God's going to speak a voice to me." Or, believe it or not, some have tried: "I'm going to open my Bible that day and I'm just going to go like this and go like this, just going to point to some random verse trusting the Holy Spirit will guide my finger." That becomes God's will. Be very careful, there's some strange texts in this book. [laughter]

"And Judas went out and hung himself." Oops! [laughter] Don't play roulette with this book. [laughter] Hey, I love this story, I've told it to you before, about a farmer who thought he should be an evangelist. He was working his field one day. He plopped down by the side of a tree. He's looking up at clouds and he looked and he saw the clouds form what looked to him like two letters: a large 'P' and a large 'C'. And he thought, "P-C, P-C, preach Christ. That's it! It's a sign!" He sold his farm, became an evangelist. The problem is, is he was just a horrible speaker.

So he's preaching one day and this town is there to hear him. And it was pretty sad, afterwards one of his buddies came up to him, put his arm around him, and said, "Dude, do you think that perhaps God wasn't using P-C to tell you to plant corn, plant corn?" [laughter] Be careful that you don't make the will of God so mystical, because you might be doing that, preaching when you ought to be planting, or planting when you ought to be preaching. Simply put, just pursue his will over against your will, make it your ambition to discover what that is, and let that happen naturally. It'll happen supernaturally, naturally. You don't have to force it.

There was a guy who was on a diet. And he told his office, "I'm on a diet, you guys gotta hold me accountable." So he comes to work one day with this humongous coffee cake. He walks into the office with it and they scold him. They go, "Wait, wait, wait! You're on a diet." He goes, "No, no, no, no, no. This is the will of God." And so he tells them the story. He had changed his route to work so that he wouldn't go by the bakery; he went the long way around on his diet. But that day he happened to forget and drove right passed the bakery.

He says, "I'm driving passed the bakery and I looked in the window and this thing was sitting right in the front window. I knew it can't be an accident, it's providence. So I prayed. I said, 'Lord, if it's your will for me to get that cake, may there be a parking space right in front, in front of that window.' "And he said, "Wouldn't you know it, eighth time around the block there was a parking space." [laughter] Will of God. I do want to say, however, the will of God is never a burden, it's a blessing. I know that when people hear the term "will of God," some go, "Oh! It's gotta be hard." Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, my burden is light."

John said, "We obey his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome." So the will of God is not an encumbrance, it's an enablement that makes burdens light. You won't always know what he's up to; you'll want to. He won't always reveal it, but you can rest that he knows best. So resist sin, relish God's will, here's a third: Renounce yours past. In other words, come up to a point in your life and maybe today will be the point where you look back and you say, "Enough is enough. That stuff is gone. That's the old me. That's the old lifestyle. I got something new going on."

Verse 3, "For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles---when we walked in lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you." What a list. Now, last week I spoke about baptism. And do you know that in some denominations when you go to get baptized, there's a formality and you answer questions? If you want to get baptized into that church, the clergy wants to ask you some questions, and they want to hear your answer.

And here's the first question: Do you renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this world, with all the covetous desires of the same, and the sinful desires of the flesh, so that you will not follow nor be led by them? That's the question and they expect this answer: I renounce them all. That's the thought of this passage: renounce all of these things on this list. They're not good for you. They're not the will of God for you. They're not what's best for you. Remember the best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God.

I went through that list and I could uncover the meaning of every single word, but I think it's pretty straightforward. He simply is saying, "We all wasted enough time doing bad stuff." I looked at that list and I thought, you know, I knew people who did those things for a living. That was their nine-to-five. And after work, that's when the party really started for them. They were radical in their sin. But I also know some of those radical sinners were interrupted by radical salvation. And when they were, they all said the same thing. "Enough! I'm done. Enough! Turning point time. I've had enough of the past."

Some of you look at that list in verse 3---"lewdness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries"---some of you here can relate to one, some of you can relate to all. While others of you read that list and you cannot relate to a single one. You grew up in a Christian family. You look at that, those overt kinds of obvious, gross sins, you never did those . . . outwardly. You did them inwardly. There's still sin going on. Nobody saw it. It was just as evil. Now I want to say something to you: I remember when I was growing up, I think I was around 18, 19, I knew a kid who was around 16.

His name was Johnny. He was raised in a Christian home. Good parents, great kid, all of his life going to church, loving the Lord. But he heard all of our testimonies. He heard people saying, "Yeah, I used to be a drug addict and I came to Christ." "I used to be a mass murderer and I got turned around." All of these dramatic, gnarly testimonies. I remember talking to him one day and he said, "You know what? I never had those experiences. Maybe I need to go out and sin a little bit and get myself a dramatic testimony."

I said, "Johnny, you have the most dramatic testimony, that God can keep a person from young age through a lifetime. Your testimony will encourage every parent raising any son or daughter. If God can do that, that's dramatic." Even, I'm thankful, but we parade often ex-cons and ex-drug addicts, and famous musicians who turn to Christ. Great, it's all good, but the keeping power to keep a life through a life, that's powerful. Basically no matter how much time you spend for the flesh, no matter how much time you spend for the devil, it's enough time. Whether it was 20 years or one day, it's enough.

Enough. Were you an alcoholic? Enough. Were you a pornographer? Enough. Were you an angry person? Enough. Were you a churchgoing, Bible-carrying hypocrite? Enough. To make time count, count your past as past, over, done, enough. So resist sin, relish God's will, renounce your past. Those three things will make time count. Let me give you a fourth and we'll close: Reach the lost. Now hear me, don't tune out. Because somebody goes, "Well, I'm not good at that stuff, that evangelism stuff." You want to add some spark and zing into your life? Tell somebody about your faith. Just try that, just try it, and get back to me, and see if it wasn't exhilarating---frightening, perhaps.

Because if you don't evangelize, you will fossilize. So look at the text, verse 4, "In regard to these, they"---that is, your old friends, the world---"they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation." That simply means desire to do evil, wickedness. And what will they do? "Speak evil of you," of you. "They will give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this reason the gospel was preached also to those who are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

Listen, unsaved people do not understand when God changes a life. They do not get it. Your old friends, they don't get you. Am I right? Unsaved family members, they may be polite to you, maybe not, but they don't get you. "They think it strange." I thought it strange. I had a friend on a Saturday we were doing drugs in his bedroom together. The very next day, Sunday, he has his finger in my chest telling me I need to get saved. Made me very mad. I'm thinking, "That was Saturday, today's Sunday. What happened in 24 hours?" Because nobody can change that fast.

That's what I told him, "Nobody can change that fast." I was dead wrong. Between Saturday and between Sunday was Saturday night. He went to an event that night and he gave his life to Christ. He was changed and he told me I needed to change. I thought it strange. The world thinks it strange. They don't think it strange when people wreck their bodies with drugs. They don't think it strange when people wreck their homes with infidelity and immorality. They don't think it strange when people wreck their jobs because they have hangovers. They do think it strange when the drunk becomes sober, when the impure becomes pure.

They think it strange when you buy a Bible and you go to church and you want to hang out with Christians. That's strange! Paul the apostle shared his testimony before a Roman governor, talked about how God changed his life, and the resurrection gave him hope and life. And Festus stood up and said, "Paul, you are out of your mind. That's strange." If Paul would have said, "I got stoned drunk last night." "Good on you." But he said, "I'm a changed man"; they think it strange. So what do we do? We don't ignore them, that's our tendency. We're patient with them and as it says in verse 6, we preach to them, we seek to reach the lost.

You're their only hope. And why do we do that even when they're mean to us? Look what it says, they "speak evil of you." They go, "I can't believe you don't want to party with us," and then you leave and they just talk smack about you. So what do you do? You love them, you're patient with them, you preach to them. And here's why, for two reasons: they're blind. They're blind to spiritual truth. Second Corinthians 4, "The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe." So I know, you're going to your friends and go, "Don't you get it? Don't you get it?" No, they don't get it.

God can open their eyes? He did yours. But they don't get it at the moment. It's as foolish as trying to tell a blind man, "Hey, look at that sunset, look at that sunset. Look at the orange and the yellow and the red." "I can't. I'm blind. I can't see a hue of anything." So, they're blind. Number two, they're dead. It's even worse. You can't bring them back to life. God can, but you can't. They're dead. The book of Ephesians says, "We were dead in trespasses and sins." Peter to encourage them says, "They may be judging you right now," verse 5, "but God will judge them one day." Leave it there.

And then in verse 6 he reminds his readers of those who are dead, who have been martyred for their faith. They were falsely judged by men, they were persecuted, and they were killed for their faith. And at the time of the writing of Peter they were dead, but they were alive before God getting their reward. So don't just spend your time, invest your time. Make time count. The best of your time is when you use the rest of your time to invest your time in doing the will of God. This could be the time, the time.

I'm going to close with a story. Back in 1999---true story. In 1999, in September of 1999 in the West Bank over in Israel---you know how that works? There's a divided country, and there's a West Bank settlement, then there's a line, and on the other side of that line is the nation of Israel. In the West Bank they were on daylight savings time. Across that line in Israel they had switched back to standard time. There were a few terrorists in the West Bank preparing a bomb to explode two buses of civilians in Israel. It was a time bomb. You know where I'm going with this. They prepared the time bomb, got it over to their counterparts in Israel to place the bomb.

Their counterparts didn't quite understand the time change thing, and the bomb exploded one hour earlier than it was supposed to according to terrorists' reckoning, blew up. It killed three of the terrorists, but it spared two busloads of civilians. They were saved in an hour of time. That hour made all the difference. This hour can make all the difference. This time could make all the difference in eternity. You can't kill time without injuring eternity. You have a coin, it is your life, you're making the decision of how you're going to spend it. And whatever choice you make now determines the outcome in eternity.

What are you investing this in? Funny, when it comes to decisions like this, people will actually think, "If I were to give Jesus Christ my life, what would my friends think?" Well, if they're really your friends, then they want the best for you. This is the best. They may not understand it, they might speak evil of you if you do it, but you will have a chance to see their life also get the best. Let's go to prayer. Lord, messages like this are the kind that bring deep reflection for everyone who is sensible and listens to it sensibly, because we realize the truth of the limited amount of time that we have. But the things we do, things we think, actions or lifestyles we choose in time mean a lot and matter in eternity.

As we bring our thoughts before you, Father, I pray for everyone who names the name of Christ, everyone in earshot of this, anyone who is truly a believer in Jesus, that they will invest their time in your will. That the rest of the time, whatever is leftover of their life, that all consuming passion of "what does God want from my life? What is the purpose of my life?" would drive them. I pray also for those who may have come, maybe invited, maybe they've come several times in a row, but they just haven't come to that place where they want to cross the line and say yes to Jesus and choose to follow Jesus.

Lord, I pray that they would at this point in time, I pray that they would surrender to him. I pray that they would come to forgiveness. Some who look at the list of things we read today and go, "I know those things very well." Maybe some who haven't outwardly, but they're still estranged from you inwardly. Religion hasn't filled the void; morality, goodness hasn't filled the void. Only Jesus and his love and his forgiveness can fill that empty spot. But, Lord, that's our coin, that's our choice. We will spend it and invest it in eternal things or not. And you give us that tremendous power to choose. I pray that some will choose wisely at this moment.

For more resources from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.