Marcus Mecum - How to Steward Your Time
Exodus 13. Exodus 13:3, «Then Moses said to the people, 'commemorate this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery, because the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand'». I love that phrase, «The Lord brought you out with a mighty hand». «Eat nothing containing yeast. Today in the month of Aviv, you are leaving». Everybody say, «Aviv». I’m gonna talk about that for a minute.
«You are leaving. When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites, to the land that he swore the ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey you’re to observe this ceremony in this month. For seven days eat bread made without yeast and on the seventh day a festival for the Lord. Eat unleavened bread during those seven days. Nothing with yeast in it is to be seen among you, » so, you can kinda start seeing God has a problem with yeast here, he’s trying to make it a point.
«Nor shall any yeast be seen anywhere within your borders. And on that day you’ll tell your son, 'I do this because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt'. This observance will be for you like a sign on your hand, a reminder on your forehead this law of the Lord to be on your lips. For the Lord brought you out of Egypt with a mighty hand». There it is again. «And you’re to keep this ordinance at the appointed time, year after year». I wanna use that text, I know that it says a lot, it’s very, very wordy, but I wanna use that text to talk to you about how to steward your time. It begins by laying out this idea of the month of Aviv. It tells us exactly what the month is, the children of Israel have been in Egypt for 400 years, they’ve been enslaved, they’ve been in bondage.
And they’ve come out after the plagues had hit Egypt, they’d come out. They’re in the Wilderness and this is their very first month of freedom. This is their very first month of no longer being in bondage or enslaved, it’s called the month of «Aviv». It’s a spring time, or a season of greenness, where fruit will ripen. But it also, Aviv means the first month. So, on our calendar, it’s different than the Hebrew calendar. Our first month is not in the spring, our first month is in January so I believe that there’s a message in this for us as we end January together. Whether you’re on the Hebrew calendar or the Gregorian calendar, or whatever calendar you look at, every calendar has the beginning of a new year, the first month.
So, every year begins with a new year. That new year can be broken up into four season, and those season begin with three months each. Each season is three months long and then the season changes. With every season there is that new month with every new month there is four weeks, with every week there is seven days, and inside of each day the Bible says, «His mercies are made new every morning». And, this is what I’m getting you to catch, that with God there’s something about him that he’s constantly trying to give us a new beginning. He’s passionate about giving us a fresh start, so much so that he’s like, «I want you to think about every day is my mercies are brand new».
However, many of us are unable to find the discipline every single day to wake up and say, «Nothing that happened yesterday matters». We go through trials, we go through struggles, we go through heartbreak, we go through the ups and the downs of life. We have loss, we grieve, we’re sad, we go through different types of chAllenges in our life, failures, mistakes. All of those things have a way of getting a hold of us and we wake up the next day and we carry all of the things from the day before. God’s plan would be that we would have the ability to wake up and say, «It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday, today is a brand new day, and we can forget about the past».
That’s within in his design but many of us can’t shift that quickly out of a struggle. We can’t shift that quickly out of grieving, and so he gives us a new year. The word, «Aviv» not only means the first month, it also means the father month. So, January is our father month. Well, you and I would know that children at their best when they have the presence of a father. That your year, is what it’s saying, will be at it’s best when you give it at the front, at the beginning a fathering month, a fathering season, a fathering covering over the rest of your year. Looking out over the rest of the year.
Now, we all have kids and different kids are different ages, and different stages. And you just imagine, if you will, maybe you have a two year old, or maybe you have, you know, our grandson Gio is 18 month old and he loves to play the drums, so much so that, I don’t even know if Phil has drum sticks anymore 'cause Gio steals Phil’s drum sticks. And, maybe you have a teenager and they can’t stand you, and they don’t even wanna look at you, and they hang out in their bedroom and don’t ever come out. Whatever stage your kids are at you would know it takes a different fathering skill.
And so, when you look at your year you don’t know what February is gonna be like, if it’s gonna be terrible 2's. You don’t know if it’s gonna be a teenager that can’t stand you. You don’t know what your year looks like, but what we do know is you can create a fathering covering over your year when you give God January. Just like you cannot raise children without presence, without focused attention, you cannot raise your year in the way that it needs to be without a fathering month. The presence of a father is to love, to lead, to guide, to connect, to correct, to provide, to protect. Biblically, the father is both priest and prophet. A priest goes to God on behalf of the people, a prophet goes to the people on behalf of God.
So, the first month of every year as the fathering month is when I look at the rest of my year and whatever it’s going to become it depends on the fathering month that I give God. So, for those of you that have been praying and fasting over January, you’ve been doing this whether you know it or not you’re fathering the rest of your year. You are providing for the rest of your year. If you’ve not been praying and fasting, then maybe you’re new, and maybe you’re a guest and you don’t even know what we’re talking about. It’s okay, we’ve been praying and fasting for you.
And so, there is just a new gear that kicks in spiritually when you give God the very first part of your year. And I don’t know what the rest of your year looks like, but what I do know is because you’ve given God the Fathering month he’s leading and guiding, and protecting, and when you get to April and may and June and July, you’ve been both priest and you’ve been both prophet. You’ve been to God on behalf of your year now you’ll go to your year on behalf of God, and we are going at this year as priests saying, «God what do you want from me»? And we’re going at it as prophets saying, «Okay, God has led me for this year to be a year that gives him glory, » now, when you get to the commandments, when you get to the commandments, there’s only one with a promise attached to it and it’s honor your father and your mother. You’ve honored your year by giving him January. And there’s a promise attached to it.
When God is first, the Bible says in Matthew 6:33, «Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these other things will be added to you». It’s when you seek God first there’s all the other things that you don’t know about yet, but because you put him first God’s already out in front of you working on your behalf on all those other things that you worry about but because you prayed and you sought him first you’re not living in worry 'cause you’ve gone to God on behalf of your year. He’s given you a spirit of faith and confidence, so now you go into your year having a sense that God is already out in front doing his part on my behalf.
The beginning of Matthew gives us the instructions, the how to, the details, the principles of honoring God or seeking God first. And it says, when you pray, when you fast, not if, when you fast, when you pray, and when you give. It’s great when you pray, alone, that’s great. It’s great if you fast alone, that’s amazing, and it’s wonderful if you give on it’s own. But Matthew 6 says when you pray, when you fast, and when you give, you’re pulling all three of them together.
So, if you pray, fast, and give, and pull them all together that’s what he said is seeking him first. I’m not leaving anything in my life not fathered. I’m fathering my time. I’m fathering my future, and I’m fathering my family. I’m fathering the season that God has given me. I’m fathering my finances. I’m fathering it all by saying, «Okay, I’m putting God first, » and as a result I’m allowing that covering to be over everything else. He goes on to say that during the month of Aviv you’re to eat nothing with yeast in it.
Several times in these verses it says, «Eat nothing with yeast. Don’t let yeast be seen anywhere at all. It should be within your borders». Forget about that I don’t want it in your home, I don’t want it, if there’s a border in any way shape or form, I want it not even to cross over the border. He said, «When you eat, I want you to eat unleavened bread. And the reason why is so you can tell the next generation how God brought us out of Egypt». He’s saying something about Egypt by referring to the type of bread that they would eat in Egypt was a leavened or a yeast like bread. Yeast is part of the fungus family. It’s only seen under a microscope. It’s so light that it’s blown by the wind or even the slightest breeze, and you have to feed it for it to reproduce.
So, yeast is the leavening agent, and what yeast does is when it gets into the dough is it makes the bread airy, puffy, light, fluffy, and less dense. And God used this to be a type or a picture of what Egypt is like or what the world is like. Looks good, smells good, maybe even tastes good, for a season, but there’s no density to it, it’s all fluff. So, God said, «I don’t want you to have yeast anywhere at all, even close to you, not even in your borders». I want you to take the fathering month, the very first month of the year and announce in your life, «No more fluff. No more puffy, air, no weight, no density to my life. Instead I’m gonna give my year to God and this is gonna be a dense year, this is gonna be a weighty year».
Let me say it like this, if I take a pillow and I hit you with it, you may not like it every much, but it’s gonna take you about five seconds to go grab another billow and hit me back then we’re gonna have a pillow fight. Because a pillow, if I hit you with it it’s airy, it’s fluffy, it’s not weighty. But if I take the same pillow case instead of putting a pillow in it I put brick’s in it. And what God is saying when it comes to the world everything is fluff. That’s why the Bible says, «Knowledge puffeth up, but love edifies». What’s he saying? Love is the weighty thing. Love is like that brick in a pillow case.
That’s why the Bible, when it talks about pride and peacocking versus humility, it’s just basically saying it looks big, it looks special, it looks like something, but it’s fluffy. But yet humility may not look like much but it has some weight to it, some density to it. Prayer and fasting there’s no fluff with that. When you do it to God and do it in honor of him, it is a dense season of your life. He said, «Eat only unleavened bread, » what’s he saying? It’s gotta be dense. No fluff to it. In John 6:35 Jesus said, «I am the bread of life». He’s referring to the unleavened bread. In our culture, we don’t think much about bread. We can go to any restaurant and the first thing, for the most part, they’re gonna bring to us is bread. You don’t have to pay for it, it’s extra, it’s a freebie. It’s like take it or leave it. They’re going to bring you bread, bread upon bread, upon bread, right? And different restaurants have different types of bread.
In college, I worked at red lobster and I had those biscuits for free. And the reason I kept working there, I didn’t make it that long but I made it a little way, and I kept going back because I knew I didn’t have no money but I could get some of those biscuits, some of those cheese biscuits. I’m only doing this to you because the fast is pretty much over. But bread is a side dish. When you think of a prisoner and you wanna give them the minimum, you say bread and water. If you wanna lose weight they say don’t eat bread. It’s extra, it’s optional. It’s not necessary to survive. But in Jesus' day bread was the main course. This is why Jesus said, «I am the bread of life». He’s saying, «I’m not a side dish. I’m not a basket that you just reach into once a week».
Bread was actually considered a feast in the Bible. When you got together with people, bread was what they would call a feast and it’s mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. This why over and over you see in the scripture they broke bread. Acts says they went house to house breaking bread. Jesus multiplied the bread and the fish and feed the 5,000. At the last super, Matthew 26:17 says, «On the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, » in other words, Jesus is celebrating the month of Aviv, a new beginning, the fathering month. And the disciples are saying, «Hey, we’re in the festival of unleavened bread, we’re in this time». And they ask him, «Where do you want us to make preparations to eat Passover or to eat the unleavened bread»?
And what did Jesus do? He took the bread and he broke it, and he said, «This is my body». What was he saying? He’s saying, «There’s no more fluff in what I’m doing. I’m not a side dish, I’m not an appetizer, I’m not an afterthought, I am essential, I am the core of your existence». You could survive in his day without meat, you could survive without vegetables, but you couldn’t survive without bread. So, when Jesus said, «I am the bread of life, » what he was saying is I am the main thing. I am what life is all about. Every year, every season, every month, every single week, every single day, every hour I need thee. Someone should write a song about that.
Every hour we need him. We need him in our lives. We need him in our church. Jesus is not the side dish of what we do, he’s the main thing. He is the main point, he should be the focus. If you’ve ever been through a drive through to go get something to eat, you usually know what the restaurant you’re driving through is known for. Maybe they known for cheeseburger and fries. Maybe they’re known for chicken and waffle fries. You can’t go get that today but maybe tomorrow. But you know what the restaurant is famous for, and whatever you order at the end of the order usually they’ll ask something like, «Do you want a hot apple pie with that»? The hot apple pie is not the point, it’s not the focus, it’s not what they’re famous for, it’s not what they’re known for, it’s just a side thing that they say, «Hey, you really came for this, but do you want this while you’re here»?
And, I wonder if Jesus comes to our church services and he hears the singing, and he hears the preaching, when he sees all the ministry, and he wonders, «You think maybe they might want some me with all of that'? Do you think maybe they wanna include me in what they’re doing? You think maybe they wanna include me in what’s going on»? And the point is Jesus is the point, he’s not a side dish. He’s not a appetizer. He’s not some other little thing we just throw in. We have to have the bread of life in every single service, in everything we do.
In our singing, our worship, our mouths should be full of bread. In our preaching our mouths should be full of bread, why? 'cause I don’t have anything to offer. And nothing about me that could do anything for you, but if I’ll get the bread of life in my mouth and I’ll talk about the bread of life, he can heal, he can set free, he can deliver, he can rescue, he can raise you up. There is nothing that’s impossible for him and that’s why we gotta have him in our mouth. They called it in the tabernacle, «The bread of his presence».
Point is, is we need his presence. We get busy doing church, I’m guilty. We get busy in life, we’ve got the kids, we’ve got the spouse, we’ve got practices and school, and we gotta run everybody here and there. You got sports and you got dance recitals, and all of these different things you get so busy doing. You got budgets and you got career issues and opportunities that are always coming at you. You got all these things, bills to be paid, relationships that need to be met, body that needs to be exercised, and all of this is going back and God sits back and waits, and wonders, «Do you want some of me with all that»? Do you want some of me with all that? Because we treat him like a side dish, like something we can take or leave, like something that maybe he’ll fit into our life. But he said, «I am the bread of life. I am the main thing. In your family, I’m the main thing. Whatever you’re worried about I am the main thing. I am the purpose of it all».
This year, do not get so busy… I’m talking about how to steward your time. Do not get so busy that you forget Him. Announce over your year, no more yeast nowhere within the borders of my life. I’m fathering my year by announcing no more fluff. I don’t want fluff, I want weighty, dense relationship with God. I want the bread of his presence in all that I do. Matthew 16:12 says, «Guard against the yeast of the pharisees, » in other words, these are religious people and yeast has a way of getting into our church life and our walk with God. It just puffs up, but there’s no weight to it.
Galatians 5:9 says, «A little leaven leavens the whole lump». And God said, «Don’t let it be seen within your borders, but I want you to eat the unleavened bread». Unleavened speaks of simplicity, the simplicity of Christ. Unleavened bread, flour, water, and salt. What’s he saying? Don’t complicate life. That’s what the world wants to do to you, complicate it. Put more and more and more and more and more on you, constantly. More busy. More busy,. More stuff coming at you. Your phone, your phone, every five seconds, every ten seconds a different thing, a different way to feel, a different way to act, constantly coming, everything just, everything always working at you. Simplify it, don’t complicate things.
Make sure that your life is not just all fluff, put some weighty things in there. Keep God first. This is why in the Wilderness every single day the children of Israel had to go out and gather the manna, gather the bread. Every single day. He actually instructed them that if you try to store it up it will rot and they would pull it back and say how, «We don’t wanna go out tomorrow we got enough today to last us for the rest of the week». And they would wake up and worms and maggots would be in the bread.
And, God is saying to us every single day, «I’m the bread of life. Find time to go out and make sure that I’m the main thing in your life. I’m the main», you can’t give him all of your day, but you can begin to acknowledge him, ask him for your presence in his life, not just in January but Lord I’m using this season to father the rest of my year. And, help me this year make you a priority. I don’t want my life to be nothing but fluff. I think about how Sundays for most of us is just another side dish, just a little God side dish that we put in.
his is why Jesus said, «When you pray, 'our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, '» what’s he going to pray? «Give us this day our daily bread». It’s how you steward your time. Feel like I don’t have time for him. Life’s too busy, I don’t have time for you. But the amazing thing about putting God first is he’ll increase the time outside of spending, it’s amazing when you spend time with him your focus will come, your clarity will come. You’ll be moving stuff off your plate that shouldn’t be there. You’ll get divine inspiration on the inside of you, God will start moving you in this direct, you’ll start to get a check in your spirit about this relationship or about this direction.
And all of a sudden, you start saying, «Man, I would’ve wasted an entire year leaning into that thing, or in that situation». But in prayer, God begin… you’re fathering your days, you’re fathering your year by putting him first. And, I love what that verse says. It says, when you do this it’s reminding you and reminding the next generation that it was the mighty hand of God that brought you out of Egypt. Whatever you’re facing right now, whatever you’re up against, it will be the mighty hand of God that brings you out.