We focus on duration. God focuses on donation. We focus on longevity. God focuses on legacy. Somebody say, I've been saved 20 years? Yeah, but you've been out of God's will for 18 of them. So at the judgment seat of Christ, you only get credit for two.
Welcome to Treasure Truth with Pastor James Ford Jr. He's a senior pastor at the Christ Bible Church in Chicago. I'm Steve Hiller. Glad that you're with us today. As we dive back into the book of Esther and continue a message called It's Your Time. And pastor, we began last time to talk about the significance of what we do between the time of our birth and the time of our death. Basically, how do we live out that
dash that might appear on our tombstone? And I think it was several days ago you were talking about the fact that, well, we can end up wasting a lot of time. That's obviously one thing we can do. How are we actually to live out that time?
Well, we need to get our direction from our Heavenly Father. Now, I know somebody's saying, oh, I knew we were going to have that answer. Yeah. You know, but that's the only answer why? We were created for a purpose. Okay. Ephesians two eight and nine for by grace you have been saved through faith. And that is the gift of God, not a result of works, lest any man should boast. Why do we stop at verse nine? Because the connective tissue for is a preposition that ties them together. It's
a conjunction. And so conjunction junction. What's your function? The function of a conjunction is to tie two phrases together. Schoolhouse Rock, some of you know. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so what does Ford do in Greek is called an explanatory GA every time I see it, when I'm studying or when I'm getting ready to preach or teach, I write the word reason because that's what I was taught when I matriculated at the Moody Bible Institute back in
the early 80s. My professor told me, when you see explanatory gap, the first thing that should come to your mind is the word reason. Because now explanatory GA is just that. It's going to explain why the previous verses were said. So then we were saved by grace. What's the reason? We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Don't stop there which God hath for ordained, that we should walk in them. So everything I'm supposed
to do has been set out from eternity. So then I pray, uh, the words of Proverbs three five and six, trust in the Lord with all thy heart. Lean not to thy own understanding in all, not some in all, not most in all your ways Acknowledge him and he will direct your path. What's he directing my path to? To where he already put a road. Yeah. This is your road. I want you to walk in it and that's it. And so I want to know. And I pray about these things. I've been given opportunities to do
a whole lot of things. Some of them I say no because after I talked to him, he says, I don't want you doing that. That doesn't fit within your purpose. And here's what I love. The word workmanship is the Greek word poiema, from which we get poem. And the sad tragedy is the way we live our lives, some of us as believers. We don't read like a poem. We read like graffiti on a bathroom wall.
Huh? Well, that is just the beginning of the program. That that is a message in and of itself right there. But we're going to get into Esther chapter four today. So join us as we continue. It's your time. Here is Pastor Ford.
And so what what am I trying to tell you? Now is the time to do what you later wish you would have done. Let me say that again. Now is the time to do what you wish you would have done later. It's your time, see? Today is the tomorrow that you talked about yesterday. And so it's time now. I mean, you know, it's like I'm. I'm praising God. And you know how some of us say we made New Year's resolutions in, in January, you know, I'm going to lose some weight. And then we wonder when we
get on the scale, why aren't we losing? Uh, I was wondering it, too. And I told my wife, let me get on this scale. Hold my Twinkies. Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is cash. Spend it wisely. Now is the time to do what you later wish you would have done. God gives opportunity And we need to make sure that we jump on his kairos with our chronos. Remember what happened to the children of Israel. God said, alright, I want you to go. I'm.
Open the door. They walked around with placards. Hades! No, I won't go! Hades! No, God said, the door is open. They said, but we ain't going. God said, okay, you ain't going. Alright, I'm closing the door. So then Moses told him, God closed the door because y'all wouldn't go. When he told you to go. And, uh, they said, okay, we'll go. And God said, don't go. I'm not with you now. I had the door open. You wouldn't walk through the door. Now the door is shut. What happened?
Somebody holler it out. What happened? They went up anyway. When God said go, they said no. And when God said no, they said, go. Dead monkey on the line somewhere. And so what happened? They went up there and got jacked. They got jacked because God is a God of time. Remember what it says in Galatians four four in the fullness. Plethora the fullness of time. God sent forth His Son, made of a woman made under the law to die. Jesus came at the right time. Oh, there is a
right time, y'all. Oh, there is a right time. There's a set time. A fullness time. Noah was told to come into the ark and it was time. I don't have time to go through the whole thing, but you know the chronology. What is set? Okay, so what I did was I went to a theological dictionary. Just. Just be patient with me, okay? Say we will, pastor. Okay. Thank you so much. Psalm 102 13. The set time to favor Zion is gone. I looked up the theological dictionary.
You apply it. Now listen to this. I'm going to give you all ten of them. I'm going to drop them and I'm going to push them. What does set mean, number one to be established as a model to be set up. Number two, to be ready to catch prey, set a trap. Number three, to regulate for proper functioning. Like set a thermostat. And you're getting these now. I hope you're applying them as I'm saying them, because I don't, you know, there's ten of them. I can't apply all
of them. It'll take me all day to do that. And so number four, to be positioned for action. Ready set go. Number five to harden or to congeal. He set his face like a flint to fix by decree. God has set everything in order. Number seven to furnish by example. Number eight to mark. Ready for use. Set the plate on the table to move. Number nine in a direction. He set off toward the north side. And then ten to arouse to action. He got set for battle. Do you listen to all those? And it tells us
what what this time is all about. Uh, that it's time for us to realize. It's time to do something with the dash. We must car pay. DM. Come on, say it. Car pay. DM. What does it mean? Seize the day. Seize the moment. The time is right. Right now is the time to take the community. Right now is the time to go back to school. Right now is the time to start the business. Right now is the time to write your book. Right now is the time to do it now, now, now, now, now is
the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. Today is the day to get saved.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Yeah. Yeah. Temporary victory turned into a perpetual move of God. Mm. Andrew Carnegie, some of you know who he is, but we know him because we're from Pittsburgh. And most of his meals were in Pittsburgh, and he was a steel magnate. Uh, multi multi-billionaire back when, you know, that was he'd probably be richer than Warren Buffett today. Uh, but here's what he said. He said, uh, how'd you make it? You
came here as an immigrant. How'd you make it? Well, he should have said I didn't come on a slave ship and that that'd be first. But here's what he said. Quote, we were all told America was the land of opportunity. I acted on it. I acted on it. What are you acting on today? Wow. So what can you do with time? Let me. Let me run through this real quick. What can you do with time? Well, the first thing you can do with time is you can waste time. And we do it all the time. We waste time,
we kill time. We bury our opportunities. Deuteronomy chapter one. Let's turn there real quick. Deuteronomy chapter one says this. Listen to this. These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side of Jordan, in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red sea, between Paran TEFL Laban, Hazeroth and Di Zahab, there are 11 days journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir unto Kadesh Barnea. How many days to the Promised Land? 11.
How long did it take them? 40 years. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, 40 years. I just did a little math. Times 365 is 14,600 days. So then it took them 14,589 days longer than what it should have taken. You know why? Because God could get them out of Egypt. But he couldn't get the Egypt out of them, right? You know it because you you're sitting here. I remember when Babbie Mason was here. We ought to bring her back. Babbie Mason was here, and
she said something I'll never forget. She said I. I was like some of you. I had too much church for the world and too much world for the church. You know how I like to say it. You got one foot in the world and one foot in the church. And when the rapture happened, you're going to split your pants on the way up. And here God has given opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. When you kill time, it can't be resurrected. Here it is. You've got to move.
When God says move, you've got to strike while the iron is hot. Go while the door is open. They refuse to go and the door was closed. Haggai chapter one. Read it. God said, the problem with your not building what I told you to build the wall and my temple is because your priorities are not my priorities. What are we going to do? Christ's Bible. It's time to mobilize. We need some real men to read. We're getting ready to go back out on the corners, man. We gotta mobilize.
I don't know about you. I'm encouraged to hear that. I mean, the body of Christ being, the body of Christ, the church getting out there and being the church in Jesus name. You're listening to Treasure Truth with Pastor Ford. A message called It's Your Time, and we'll get back to this message in just a moment. I want to let you know we're able to bring you Pastor Ford's teaching each day because of your generosity. Those of you who have given a gift to treasure truth before a
huge thank you. If you've never given, would you consider doing so today? Come to our website, Treasure Truth radio.org and click on the donate button. You can give a one time gift or an ongoing monthly gift at Treasure Truth radio.org and click on donate again. Here's Pastor Ford.
I told the story before, but you could tell it grates me to no end. Uh, we were given an opportunity to get $2 million worth of buildings newly rehabbed, and, uh, the board voted not to do it. I was like, are you serious? Somebody's going to donate to us. $2.5 million worth of buildings in, uh. What's this over here? Uh, they're building it up now. What? What is it called? Brownsville. It was in Brownsville. Waste time. Man. What's the other thing we can do? We can mark time. We can
mark time. You know what, Mark? Time. Who was in the military? Who was in the military? Who remembers this? We are marching. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Mark! Time! Whoo! Chop, chop. And you just. You just in place. You ain't going nowhere. But you're moving. Oh, if that ain't the church of Jesus Christ today we moving. But we ain't going nowhere. We just marking time. We just. We just. Meat. Meat, meat. Meat meat meat meat meat. Oh, okay. Listen, I shared
this with you before, so I hope you'll just. Just remember it. Acts chapter 13 tells us that there were 593 years of history. But first Kings chapter one, verse one says there were 480 years. Now most people look at it and say, see, there's a discrepancy in the Bible. There's no discrepancy. What's going on? Where where are the missing years? Go to Book of Judges. That's where they are. Those missing years. If you add up how many years? The children of Israel disobeyed God and he brought them
under captivity, there you'll find your years. In other words, they didn't count. It didn't count. Why? Because the Captivities were given to you. Because you weren't obeying God. Somebody said this, I quote, life is like a taxi cab. The meter is running, whether you're moving or standing still. Yeah. That's right. See, we focus on duration. God focuses on donation. We focus on longevity. God focuses on legacy. Somebody say, I've been saved 20 years. Yeah, but you've been out
of God's will for 18 of them. So at the judgment seat of Christ, you only get credit for two. I've been a Christian 15 years, but you ain't done nothing sitting on your rusty, dusty and haven't done anything. Yeah. That's it. Jonah, go to Nineveh. And so what does it say? And Jonah paid his fare. Because whenever you disobey God, you picking up the tab? God ain't picking up your tab. I say it all the time. I know, I know, they're tired of hearing it on the radio.
You're shacking with the devil and want Jesus to pay the rent.
Alright.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah. Go to Nineveh and preach against that great city. Jonah said, Hades, no, I ain't going. And he doesn't go. What does he do? He paid his fare, and he went down. And he went down from Jerusalem, down to a ship, down in the belly of the ship, down into the sea, down into. See what happened to him. Anytime you disobey God, the only direction you can go is down.
Amen.
So now he goes down. He tries to get away from God. That's a funny. You didn't laugh. How can you escape from the omnipresent God? He is everywhere. At all time. In all time. So how are you going to. And he running from the presence of the Lord. Now, let me tell you what the phrase presence of the Lord means. He's running from the things that remind him of the Lord's presence, like Jerusalem and the people of Jerusalem and the Tabernacle and all those kind of things like, oh,
don't act like we don't do it. We backslide. We don't come to church, we don't read our Bible. We don't pray. Why? We want to get away from the presence of the Lord. Well that's it. Yeah. We want to get away from it. And here's here's what I like. If you read chapter three, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Now, here's what you'll find. The exact words that God gave him in chapter one are the exact words that he gave him in chapter three.
God didn't change his mind about what he wants you to do. Some of you have been called and you're running from God. The call's not going to change. It's not going to change. What is it that he told you? Five years ago he wanted you to do? He ain't changed his mind about it. You say? Well, then, what's going on? He doesn't violate your free will. He's letting you do what you want to do. See, God doesn't make us change our minds. He only sends circumstances that will make us change our mind.
Yes, sir. Amen.
How many of us ever said, God, if you get me out of this, I'm going back to church. And that's why you're here right now. Let me. Let me see some hands. Some honest folk. Some honest folk. There you go. There you go. That's it. In other words, listen, when you're marking time, you're maintaining, but you're not attaining.
Yeah.
And so what happens? You're going through the motions. Wow. Yeah. You can you can mark time. Here's the third thing you can do. You can transcend time. You can transcend time. Uh, because the past should be a springboard, not a hammock.
Alright.
Some people live so far in the past that their future is gone by the time they get there. Don't let your history wreck your destiny.
Amen. Amen.
What did Paul say? I'm pressing this. Come on. Everybody knows it. One thing I do forgetting. I press. Well, Paul, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's two things. No, it's one thing. If I'm going to press, I have to forget.
Yeah.
You know what the word forget means? It's a Greek word. FEMA. Here's what it means. Let it go. Let it go. When are you going to let it go? I know some things were very difficult. I know that there were some dastardly things that have happened. But when are you going to let it go? Way, way back in the past. Why are you going to let your past override your present and your prophetic? God is able. You can go through it. I read the story of one of the
Miss America. She was Italian and, uh, very beautiful woman. And she went into a restaurant. She was the only one there. The owner grabbed her, took her in the back and raped her. That's devastating. She was devastated. And she was a believer. God, how could you allow something like that to happen to me? And I serve you. Fast forward to video. You know what she's doing now. She heads a ministry that ministers to rape victims. God does that. Anybody ever heard of Johnny Erickson? Tada! Anybody?
She was a beauty queen to dived into a pool that had shallow water and, uh, became a paraplegic. Now she has the number one ministry in the world that ministers to people who are paraplegic.
You're listening to Treasure Truth with Pastor Ford. A message called It's Your Time, and we would love to know how this current series maybe is making a difference in your walk with Christ. How maybe he's reminding you it's your time to step out and to do something in his name. Recently heard from a listener in Florida who says, hey, I'm loving your recent messages. You're all up in my kool aid, Pastor Ford. I'm going to pass this test
my other storm. So keep it up, sir. Well, Gail, thanks for letting us know that you're out there, that you're listening, and that this Bible teaching from Pastor Ford is making a difference in your walk with Christ. If we've never heard from you before, there's a few different ways that we can connect. First of all, you can just come to the website Treasure Truth radio.org and click on the contact link. Give us your feedback there, or even ask a question to Pastor Ford. You can also
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also to the Moody Radio app. You can use that to listen to a treasured truth on the go, as well as links to connect with Pastor Forde and his church, Christ Bible Church of Chicago. Again, you'll find all of that when you come to treasure Truth radio.org and look for the Stay Connected bar. Well, thanks to our producers, Amy Rios and Ryan McConaughey. For Pastor Ford, I'm Steve Miller. Treasure truth is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.