Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - How to Redeem Your Time as a Christian | Ephesians 5:15-16 Explained | Jonny Ardavanis

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Are you making the most of the time God has given you? In this episode, we dive deep into Ephesians 5:15-16 and explore what it means to "redeem the time" as followers of Christ.Key Topics Covered: �� What does "redeeming time" really mean in Scripture • Why time is your most precious commodity • 5 biblical reasons you need to redeem your time NOW • 7 practical ways to steward your time wisely • The difference between rest and wasting time • How to walk in a manner worthy of the gospelScripture Focus: Ephesians 5:15-16 - "Be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil."Practical Takeaways: • Limit screen time (average person spends 7 hours/day on screens!) • Create a daily schedule • Learn to say no to good things for the best things • Build godly discipline and rhythm into your life • Practice biblical restThe average person will spend 6.5 years of the next 20 years looking at screens. What if you could redeem that time for God's glory? Your time is short, uncertain, and once it's gone, it's gone forever. Learn how to steward it wisely.Subscribe for more biblical teaching and practical discipleship content!

If you really want to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, if you want to live in a way that reflects, Jesus died for my sin and I'm grateful for that reality, then you need to make sure you are redeeming the time. You have to ask the question, what's my mission? What does God have for me during my days? You've been given a certain allotment of time and your responsibility, your privilege,

your high calling as a Christian is to buy it back. And we're going to talk about why we need to do this in a moment. Welcome to dial-in ministries. Hank, there's reason to rejoice today is in there. Absolutely. And would you mind filling in on what it is? The bears are at 500. Two and two.

Miracles happen. Miracles happen. They said it going to be done, but we've won two games. We're just growing in wisdom every day. Yeah, the Chicago Bears, everybody. Keep praying. Thank you for your support. If you just throw up the prayer emoji.

In the comments. In the comments. I will like every single one of those comments. Do you have your own YouTube? I think so. He'll make one and he'll like it. All right, you know, this is about me when I was growing up. I have two younger sisters.

I have two older siblings, but it was girl, boy, boy, Kyle Johnny, and then two more girls. But my parents, my mom got pregnant. And at this point, I'm praying for a little brother. You know, I'm going, come on, come on. You know, I was just going to pour into that little guy. And they were going to tell us what it was. And so they take us to a park. I think it was outside of our, by the church in Wheaton.

And they're going, drum roll please. And my dad pulls out a pink diaper bag. So we're out number that was, and he says, but wait, there's more. Plot twist. And he says, turns out we're having twins. And I'm going, okay, there's another chance for little brother. And he pulls out another pink diaper bag. Devastating.

It was the only time my brother and I cried simultaneously. The only time I cried when he wasn't inflicted. pain on me. But it was, I just wept with my brother. It was official. We were outnumbered five girls to two boys. And you know, they were identical twins. They look exactly alike. And the only way

initially that you could differentiate Binger and Bummer, as we call them. Maybe the greatest nicknames ever conceived by man. Different story for another time. The only way that many people could differentiate them is that Binger had a birth mark, like a hemangioma on her shoulder. We called it her strawberry. Just slide a hemangioma in there. Yeah.

Yeah. And they would check to see which one it was. But I remember having some sort of a pride when I was little. People would say like, I can't tell them apart. I'm like, they didn't even look alike to me. They don't even look alike to me. And I always used to say, I can tell who they are from like 50 yards away just by the way they walk.

Could you actually? Oh, yeah. Because Bomber has this little hitch. There's a hint of elitism, even though you said that now. Well, I could. I remember thinking it was the best. All this to say, different. In the scripture, in the scripture, the Bible says that you can tell how a believer is different and distinct from an unbeliever. And Paul says, by the way they walk. Not because they have a hitch, not because they have a certain gate or a certain style by which they're literally walking, but it's the way that they live. And Paul's going to talk about that in Ephesians

chapter 5. But in Ephesians, Paul has been summarizing really the Christian faith, central doctrines. In chapter one, he says in him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. And he's going to these great doctrines that God chose you before you could ever do anything to please him. He set his love on you before you could do anything to deserve or merit that love, which is a precious reality. In Ephesians 2, he says that you are by nature a child of wrath, that we are born in sin, we're born dead in sin. That's not an idea that the reformers came up with 500 years ago. That's a reality from the scripture no one is righteous not even one and it is by grace we've been saved through faith not as a

result of works ephesians 2 8 and 9 so that no one can boast so i'm just summarizing paul's going to these great doctrines god chose you he loves you he predestined you ephesians too not because you were so awesome you were a child of god yeah you are born dead in sin and what you're saying but god ephesians 2 4 and 5 being rich in mercy because of his great love that idea of love paul continues in Ephesians 3 by saying his prayer for the Ephesian Church is that they would know the height and depth and breadth and width of this love, meaning that it's possible for you to affirm this love but never taste the fullness of it. Now, in those first three chapters, there is only one imperative command, and it's given in Ephesians 2, verse 12, when he says to remember. Just

remember how God redeemed you. You were alienated from God. But turning a corner, as Paul does typically in the Pauline epistles in chapter four, he turns a corner, and I'll just look there with you in Ephesians 4.1, he says, therefore, I, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, of the calling with which you have been called. So again, these first three chapters, great, monumental truths about what God has done for us in Christ. One command. It's just to remember what God has done. Turns this corner in Ephesians 4, and he says to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. And then starting at this point in 4-1, the rest of the book is just, what does that mean? And how do we do that? Yeah, I was going to say

the natural implication then is, okay, so how, so how? Yeah. So in Ephesians chapter 4, he says that we walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in the church by walking in unity. He says that we're to do this, like you and I, we're not trying to force unity. We are unified because we've been blood bought by the same Savior. So he says, if you really want to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, if you want to live in a way that reflects, Jesus died for my sin and I'm grateful for that reality, he chose me. You're going to walk in unity. Secondly, he says you're going to walk in newness of life, meaning that you're not going to live like the old man. You're not going to live in a way that used to define you. And then you might even say, well, what does that mean? Well, third, he says,

to walk in love. In Ephesians 5-1, he says, therefore be imitators of God. What does that mean? and walk in love, just as Christ loved you and gave himself up for you, meaning if you want to walk in a manner, again, coming back to this in 4-1, if you want to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, you're going to walk in love. And then he says, be an imitator of Christ, and then, well, what does that mean again? Well, fourth here, to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, we walk in sexual purity. We're going to talk about this in a few weeks when we start that series. But in Ephesians 5, 3 through 14, he says, let no filthiness or silly talk or coarse jesting or sexual impurity even be named among you. Not a hint. Yeah, not even a hint. The first rung of the latter so often when they're even summarizing the distinction in the book of Acts between an unbeliever and a believer, they say, all right, stop eating food, sacrifice to idols, and be sexually pure.

Like, let's just condense this, right? But then Paul says, starting in Ephesians 515, he gives one last way that a Christian is to walk, a manner worthy of the gospel and it's the longest section of this entire letter you want to read 515 for me absolutely so he says therefore in light of everything we've just articulated everything paul's laid out be careful how you walk not as unwise men but as wise so big idea here you walk in a manner worthy of the gospel by walking in biblical wisdom and what does that mean well it doesn't mean you acquire just a lot of knowledge because as we've talked about you can have all of the knowledge in the world and still be a biblical fool. Biblical wisdom isn't so much what you know. It's how you apply

what you know to how you live. And he says here in Ephesians 515, look carefully. Does your Bible say watch out? Yeah. Well, it says be careful. Yeah, it just means to contemplate, to think, to weigh carefully. He's just saying you've been blood bought by Jesus Christ. So you're not to live your life carelessly, but carefully. As some of you know before I became a pastor and before I worked at Hume Lake, I studied at the Master's University. At that point in my life, when I was a student, I had no idea that I'd end up being a pastor, so I studied accounting and finance.

But what I love about the Master's University is that everything, regardless of the field of study that you may pursue, is firmly committed to Christ in Scripture. And we live in a time where young men and young women need to be grounded in a biblical worldview. I not only attended university there, but I ended up working there before I became a pastor as the dean of campus life.

And if you are a student or know of a student in your life that is looking for a place to attend college, I'd highly encourage you to apply for the Masters University. And when you do, you can use my code dial in to waive that application fee. And what's more, if you apply by November 1st, you're going to qualify for a $1,000 early scholarship. And so I want to just encourage you.

Check out the Masters University. If you're looking for more information about what fields of study they offer, go to their website, masters. and make sure you if you're a student or the students in your life apply one of the surest ways you can ensure you live like a fool is by never pausing watching looking carefully to make sure that your life and the way that you're living it is aligned with scripture so what does it mean to live and walk wisely well paul gives us the answer essentially in verse 16 want to read that

yeah and so in this translation it says making the most of your time because the days are evil. Yeah, or in your translation it might say, another translation it might say, redeeming the time. Now, if what Paul was wanting to say was just making the most of your time, there is a perfectly good Greek word that he could have employed to say that the word that he actually uses here is a Greek word exa gorazaminoi. It means to redeem. It means to buy back.

It's the same word used in Galatians where Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. To redeem something means to buy. It means to purchase. It's the language of the marketplace. And Paul is saying, okay, you want to live in a manner worthy of the gospel, worthy of the manner in what you've been called. You want to live a life of wisdom. Then you need to make sure you are redeeming the time. And he's presenting a case and speak to this right from the beginning of this section that time is unlike every other commodity. According to the Bible, according to the scripture, it's precious and we need to look carefully and consider how we're stewarding it. Yeah, well, and I'm just thinking a commodity, like in the traditional sense, it's just like the raw material or that which is making up other things.

And so in that light, I mean, time, no amount of money, and I think you're going to flesh this out more fully later, but time would then be kind of the hardest or the most precious of all commodities possible. Yeah, and I think it's just probably worth considering that Paul, and I don't know how often, we do think about this in the context of the church. Paul is saying one of the distinctive spiritual birth marks of a Christian is that they take a shrewd consideration of the way they redeem time. Now, there are two different words for time that are used in the New Testament. One of them is chiros and the other is chronos. Chronos would be that idea of chronology,

meaning like if I said, hey, what time is it or what time does the game start? Kronos refers to successive moments in time. The steady march of events. Yeah, exactly. That's not the word that's used here. The word here is chiros. It refers to seasons or epochs. It's like the same way where Dickens says it was the best of times.

It was the worst of times. Paul's not talking about specific moments within the day. He's talking about seasons of time, windows of opportunity, the time in your life. Paul is saying, hey, you've been given a certain allotment of time, and your responsibility, your privilege, your high calling as a Christian, is to buy it back. So, and we're going to talk about why we need to do this in a moment. I study rhetoric in school, but we actually spent a lot of time on Cairo specifically. And to your point, it's this, it's a really important word about the fullness of time or like the moment you're meeting.

And so the application then would be this isn't, like Paul is not making this message to like a special group of people, but rather. Yeah, it's not super duper Christians. Yeah, exactly. It's every Christian or everyone who calls themselves a child of God. Yeah, so I got several reasons why we need to redeem the time. This is for you. If you're a Christian, if you're 13 or 73 or anything in between, 93, you need to redeem the time, number one, because your time is very short. The scarcity, we talked about this a few episodes ago, the scarcity of the scarcity of, the scarcity of,

any commodity drives the value of it and more scarce than diamonds are a man's days job says he his days are swifter than a weaver shuttle they're gone they're like a breath they're there so time is very short and not only is time short secondly it's it's uncertain james is the one who says in chapter 413 come now you who say today and tomorrow will go to such and such a place in train to make a problem yeah we're going to do this you don't even know what your life is going to look like tomorrow uh your time is not only short you may be trying to pace out your days, thinking like, you know, in Psalm 90, we looked at this a few episodes ago, you know, 70 or 80 years. But you're not promised tomorrow. You're not promised another season.

So you need to redeem the time because it's short. It's uncertain. And obviously, number three, once time is gone, it is gone forever. I love this quote by Jonathan Edwards. He says, Jonathan Edwards says, if men were as lavish with their money as they were with their time, if it were as common a thing for them to throw away their money as it is for them to throw away their time we should think them besides themselves and not in the possession of their right minds

yet time is a thousand times more precious than money and when it is gone cannot be purchased for money and cannot be redeemed by silver or gold meaning this if you saw a guy outside in the hallway and he took a stack of Benjamin's and he just started lighting him on fire

you go what the heck are you doing and Jonathan Edwards says, well, this is what people do with their days on a regular basis, because time cannot be bought with money. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. Four, you need to redeem the time because we have work to do. You know, Jesus says, I must do the works of him who sent me while at his day. Night is coming when no man can work. Jesus says that about himself, but he's also saying that to his disciples, meaning, hey, I can say, I can tell you, you've been predetermined a God-allotted amount of days. Psalm 139. All of my days are written in your book before one of them came to be.

I know that to be true because God says it. Not only has God predetermined the allotment of days, he has pre-assigned you a work to fulfill for his glory. That's why Ephesians 2-10 says, we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that you should walk in them. So I could say, Hank, God is predetermined. Let this way on your conscience. No, but in a serious way. I mean, it's a wild thought to consider, like, in the same way that we know the familiar Psalm that God knit together you in the womb of your mother. But I don't know if I've ever seriously considered or leveled with. He's also prepared those works for me to do them at the appointed time in the same way that he created me. No, you have to,

you have to ask the question, what's my mission? What does God have for me during my days? you're going to stand, and I'm going to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. We're going to give an account. Give an account for the way we stewarded not only our talents, but our time because someone might be a one talent person, another person be a 10 talent person, but they all have time on their side in the sense of, hey, did you leverage that time that's, you know, David Gibson says, is on the lease from God for his glory. And that's something to consider.

And we redeem this time. Number five, why are we doing this? Not only because time is short, not because it's just uncertain, not because it's just uncertain, and not because once it's gone, it's gone forever, and not because we have a work to do, but because five, the days are evil. That's what Paul says here. He says, redeeming the time, why, comma,

because the days are evil. That's Ephesians 516, again, if you're following along with us. Yeah. Paul writes and says the days are evil, and what was true then is true now. I don't think I need to convince anybody of this reality. You turn on the news.

People process tragedy and the evil of this day. in a way where no other generation has right i've said this before but you used to have to process tragedy one day at a time in the morning newspaper now you just swipe your phone and you're just reminded of the rampant and pervasive wickedness of the world in which we live and that's a truism if someone listens to this podcast you know the day it comes out or 20 years later i mean that's for sure yeah and when he says here the days are evil paul is just referring to the reality that every era period of time um are day today, it has an allotted amount of evil. And God has given every single Christian the ability

to say with Mordecai, I am here for such a time as this. We are to redeem the time for the days are evil. Every single generation looks at the culture around them and says, this is an evil time. This is an evil season. I've been given a window of opportunity for my life to steward for the glory of God. And I got to live with a sense of urgency to maximize the time God has given me to shine as a light and function as salt. And just even as you're saying that, I think that's also where Paul ends Romans, right? And Romans 13 do the works while it's daytime. I mean, this is a theme that's going to be replete throughout the entire scripture. Yeah. No, it's true. Now, just briefly, I want to just get practical for a moment. This is great truth. We talk about how

So there's implications from scripture, like, meaning like, okay, we got to go do this. And the Holy Spirit often is the one that, okay, well, what does that mean for me? Yeah, practically, like, I guess I'll ask the obvious question. How do we go about redeeming your time? What would you say to that person? I think a few things. Well, first of all, we have to remember on a regular basis that we're going to give an account, not just for explicit immorality or morality.

We're going to give an account for things that we may kind of shove to the peripheral corners of our, you know, stewardship process. We want to think about the big things. We don't want to think. No, you're going to have an account for the way you use your time for the glory of God. And you said it before, but this also means that we take into consideration how small compounding moments add up to a lifetime. And that's like coming from kind of the investing background. The compounding always comes to mind of the small decisions. The wonder of the world.

Absolutely. But the small decisions we make, those small incremental decisions add up to something enormous that's going to echo through eternity and so the inverse is also true of if we're constantly kind of blowing by those small moments that's not taking full grasp of the stewardship responsibility we're given yeah which leads me to number two here you just practically you limit your screen time right so the average person listening to this spends about seven hours a day looking at a screen whether that be your phone your tablet your computer a television which means that over the next 20 years you're going to spend about six and a half of those years

looking at a screen. I think it was John Piper who said on the day of judgment we're going to be ashamed in a sense of the rich opportunity that has been extended to us as an ambassador and just realizing how much time we wasted on Facebook. Maybe he says something along the lines of on the day of judgment no one's going to wish that I had spent more time on Facebook. 100%.

And in the meta point, so you're talking like extremely, Practically, but also I instantly go to like, man, if I could see the screen time of my life, like outside of literally the screen time on my device, a hundred percent. Yeah. That would, I mean, it's like worth, I need to go think about that for a week. So practically what this means for me, and obviously this is for multiple reasons. But I don't have apps on my phone, really. You know, I took off all the social apps.

You know that already. That's both from a purity perspective and also from a stewarding of my time perspective. First of all, that saves you hours. Yeah, 100%. Bleacher Report, ESPN, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, I deleted, but those are, those things are gone. And those are minutes back in your day. Those are minutes back in my day. And they robbed me in my ability to focus, which is another, you know, conversation on productivity. I mean, like, if you're just checking your things constantly, it's a bad habit.

Three, real quickly, right there. That's also an inverse amazing accountability question. Like, I mean, my wife and I were talking about this the other day, but it's a useful guard for the people around you to the extent of like, yes, the purity, but also just we collectively might be wasting time as a family. So anyway, yeah, no, it's just a heap of garbage. You know, like, it just, you know, you read this and you go, oh, wow, time is a gift. And when you abuse that gift, it's dishonoring to God. And it's a one-way street. Yeah, what do you mean about that, actually?

Just meaning like every minute, I mean, we can't, we can only use what we're given and there's no going back. Yeah, there's no going back. Three, make a schedule. We are inundated by the perceptibly urgent, meaning, like, for me, practically speaking, like in the evenings, I make a schedule for the following day of what I have to do. And obviously, Josh helps me with my schedule, but it's super helpful. But I, that way I'm not trying to figure out what I'm going to do throughout the day so that I can kind of like action. Some people think they're way busier than they really are. That's been a big thing that I've learned is I've become progressively, I would say my schedule's progressively gotten fuller, is you just kind of eliminate, you know,

different opportunities to waste time. Making a schedule really helps. Well, and so maybe the other thing I'd add is learning to say no, because you're probably thinking about this. Last number four. Oh, fantastic. I'm jumping ahead. I apologize. Well, Johnny, such a great point. Learning to say no, let me take that. No, but there's the honest reflection, if you get minutes back in your day. Part of it is, if you're running an index of your life, there's probably things you aren't saying yes to. But if you kind of lean back and say, oh, well, I'm already really super busy, that means you need to be saying no very practically to a bunch of things that you might be inadvertently. Good things that aren't the best things. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, people count calories,

but very rarely do people evaluate the minutes of their day. I like what Jay Oswald Sanders says in his book, spiritual leadership. He says, after making a generous allowance of eight hours a day for sleep and rest, and few really need more than that. Three hours a day for meals and social interaction, 10 hours a day for work and travel on five days. There still remains no fewer than 35 hours unaccounted for every week. He asked the question, what happens to those hours? How are the extra two days in the week invested? I love this. He says, the whole of a man's contribution to the kingdom of God might well turn upon how those crucial hours are employed. They will determine whether his life will be commonplace or extraordinary. Just saying, what are you doing with the windows of time?

Do you even create windows of time to be able to prioritize what the Lord is put in front of you? Number five, just godly discipline. Part of stewarding your time is having some sort of regimen, you know, to be able to handle things. Six, ask the Lord for help, right? You can't do this on your own. We're not saying, hey, you can just kind of Gary Vayner check your way to success here in the sense of like, no, no, and say, you know, manage your time. You have to ask the Lord to number our days to give us a heart of wisdom. We need God's spirit to help us. And before we keep moving, I guess as I'm listening to this, and maybe to tee up number seven, the question that I would have is like a listener is my anxiety is rising. It's like, okay, wait, so do I never relax? Am I just going from thing to thing

to thing to thing? And so maybe what would you say to that? Learn to rest. Number seven, one day of rest for admiration of the Lord, it's a precious gift to us. And it has a massive effect on the rest of the way we spend our time throughout the week, meaning, you know, different people have said, you know, if you learn to rest one day, it affects the other six days. Rest affects and shapes the way you use the entirety of your time. God in the garden, we'll talk about this more, implemented a system. He's, you know, on the seventh day, he rested. And if we use this day well, it also creates a structure for the other days, meaning even going back to Exodus, they had to gather double the amount on the six days so that they could take

a deliberate break on the seventh day. That deliberate break is very crucial to living a life of rhythm. I think a lot of people drag their work into their rest and drag their rest into their work, and so they never have any sort of parameters for their life. So they always feel like they're working even while they're resting, meaning they're like they're doing their work while they're watching a show at night. And so the Bible says, no, no, no, you need a concentrated and deliberate break from work. But even that rest is a way you steward your time. And I think that's important too because rest isn't like a way so that you can get back to stewarding your time. And we've talked about this, enjoying life, you know, that's Ecclesiastes 9. Like go live hard,

enjoy the beauty of God's creation. That is a way you steward your time for the glory of God because God's given you a life not just to, you're not an employee in the sense, even though we were his ambassadors. We have a level of urgency, right? So you're always harmonizing these realities. Live with urgency because people are dying. Hell is hot. And we've been given a rich privilege. And then there's also this other element that we can't deny, ignore, or suppress. God's given us life to enjoy. That's 1st Timothy 6th, right? 17. He's given us all things to enjoy. So it's all of those realities sandwiched together, tethered and wrapped with a level of biblical discernment through the power of God's spirit. Well, if I was just going to punctuate your point

on rest. You said it very well, but there's this biblical mandate to enter into rest. And to your point, there's a level of intentionality of rest isn't necessarily something you. No one rests on accident. A hundred percent. And relaxation and rest are two different things. Yeah, that's honestly we're going to tee up another episode. But I think that's maybe a helpful place to stop for this. I really appreciate the time, John. Yeah, just big idea here is if according to the scripture, if you want to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, you need the walk in wisdom. And one of the ways you display your living wisely is by taking a careful calculation of the time that God has allowed you to have knowing the evil of the world in which you live and you look at all that evil in the

world in which you occupy and you say I'm here for this and I'm going to redeem it and you don't look at the world and say man I wish I lived a hundred years ago when it wasn't as bad you say no no these are the evil days God has given to me to redeem and so go and act yeah absolutely thanks Johnny Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.