February 7, 2010 Pastor Tim Pusey

BEYOND EFFICIENCY
Ephesians 5:15-17

Can anyone tell me what “stewardship” means? It’s basically the teaching from the Bible that everything we have belongs to God and that He asks us to use them as He would. We are to honor God with what we have. Pastor Casey tells me that you’ve been talking about this in Children’s Church—and we’ve been talking about it in our services in the sanctuary too. So, with what things are we to honor God? (Our money, our possessions, our bodies, our talents) This morning in my sermon I’m going to talk about how we are to be good stewards of our time.

In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, we read in chapter 3 a section that begins—
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot…(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2)
God cares about how we use our time! God cares about how you use your time and He cares about how I use my time!

How many hours are there in a day? How many minutes in an hour? How many seconds in a minute? Did you know then that there are 1,440 minutes in a day and 86,400 seconds in a day?! That seems like a lot, but it goes by so quickly! And we only get to live each day and each hour and each minute once—and then it’s gone forever!

Sometimes we talk about “wasting” time. What are kids’ greatest time wasters? (TV, video games, computers) A recent study said that among all kids ages 8 to 18 they average watching TV 4 ½ hours every day! They also average 1 ½ hour on the computer and 1 ¼ hour playing video games. Now they may be doing other things while they’re doing that, and some of the computer time may be legitimate schoolwork, but still, that’s a lot of hours a day! It’s over 7 hours a day! (Have 24 kids line up to represent 24 hours/day; then have 7 turn around to illustrate how much of the day is consumed with media.)

Now, once that time is spent, you’re never going to get it back. Do you think that if that’s how you spend your time that maybe you ought to consider whether or not it’s wise for you to spend so much time this way? I think so. And the only way we can make a wise decision on this is to make sure we’re seeking direction from the Lord. So let’s bow our heads and do just that. (Pray) (Dismiss kids to sit with their parents.)

[Video: “In Time” (1:21)]

Let’s talk about being good stewards of our time this morning. And I’ll admit that it’s a bit interesting for me to be dealing with this topic today because I’m operating on a very tight time frame! I have a new granddaughter I’m anxious to go meet, and, in trying to arrange a flight out today, the only time that would work was a 1:13 flight out of Boise heading to Cleveland! So you’ll have to forgive me for darting out this morning, but I have places to go and people to meet, as they say! But I am glad not to live on such a tight time frame every day!

How do you feel when you hear someone say, “You should be a better steward of your time”? Do you feel a little guilty? Maybe weary? Maybe frustrated? Maybe stressed? If you’re like me, you think of all the things you should stop doing—liking watching TV too much—and remember all the important things you should be doing or should be doing better!

I’m guessing most of us have heard talks or read books about being better time managers. And I agree in principle with the idea—and I do believe that it’s a stewardship issue. But it seems like what the time management experts want to do is schedule every 15 minutes of every day—from morning until night! And the truth is that I’d go nuts if I had to approach every day in such a way! Most of my days are full from early morning until evening—and often late evening, but if I had to schedule every 15 minutes of my day there would seemingly be no time left to make a difference in the lives of people—not all of whom will schedule ahead when they see a crisis coming or when they suddenly need a word of encouragement! Someone posted in Facebook just this week the statement, “A day’s most important meetings may not be the one we’ve put on our calendar.” And I agree with that! Besides that, I truly believe that we need “breathing” time in life that brings balance into our lives.

It would be tempting to think that being good stewards of time simply depends on you and me developing better time management procedures in our lives—go to a time management seminar and put into practice all of their suggestions and surely we’ll be better stewards of our time! And I suppose some of us very much need to do that—so if the shoe fits, as they say, wear it. But I’m guessing that the greater need in most of our lives goes well beyond principles of efficiency.

You see, scripture actually says very little about being good stewards of our time. Proverbs specifically addresses the need for us to learn to be diligent (14:23) and we certainly are given a lot to do in the New Testament passages which challenge us as Christ’s Church to give ourselves to the accomplishment of His mission in our world and to do so everyday. What scripture does focus on is being good stewards of our hearts. The constant drumbeat of Proverbs declares, “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23). And it would seem then that if we want to be good stewards of our time that we need to first focus on our hearts.

This will require pausing a bit from our busyness and asking ourselves some tough questions. Questions like:
• Why am I doing this activity?
• What is it that God wants from me?
• Am I making this choice to satisfy someone else’s desires—even if they’re good ones—or am I hearing from God on this?
• Am I carving out in my week time to do the things that God wants me to do?
• How am I investing in the lives of people?

While western culture presses efficiency, I believe that being good stewards of our time goes beyond time management and way beyond matters of efficiency! Efficiency can be a deceptive master. In the short haul, learning to work more efficiently results in greater productivity. Over time, though, our hearts can become frayed from our constant activity. But the questions I suggested a moment ago have the potential for taking us a totally different direction. What’s most needed is learning to attune our hearts to the heart of God and letting Him guide the way in which we approach each day—rather than simply trying to manage our time.

Let me take you this morning to something written by the Apostle Paul. It’s found in the 5th chapter of the book of Ephesians. In this chapter, Paul has been challenging his readers to give careful attention to living as Children of Light—referring to Christ being the Light, the direction, the Guide, of our lives. He tells us to stay away from “the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Then he says this, beginning at verse 15—
[Ephesians 5:15-17, NIV]

Let’s back up just a little and talk about Jesus’ perspective of time. Because Jesus was human, He lived within the framework of time and carried out His ministry in that framework. He didn’t ignore time—or He would have preached half of His messages during the middle of the night when the crowds weren’t around to hear Him. He accepted the constraints of time and the framework of time within a culture. And while His time was precious and brief, He never seemed to exhibit a sense of panic about time. If I had been Him, I would have been panicked about all that had to happen in the three short years of His ministry—and I would have stressed myself and everyone else out in the process running around frantically trying to reach as many people as possible in that short amount of time! I’d have layed awake at night stressing about the huge task! But time clearly did not threaten Jesus’ peace nor His focus in life.

While Jesus lived within the framework of time, Jesus wasn’t a slave to time. He honored its constraints but made time for what was most important. Actually, I can’t think of a time when He was too busy for people who truly needed Him, though He clearly needed and found “breathing room” in life when He pulled away from the crowds and even from His closest followers and quietly spent time with His Father.

And we must learn to do as Jesus did—make time for the matters that are important from the vantage-point of the Heavenly Father, living within the constraints of time and making the most of every opportunity. We also can learn from Jesus not to let time stress us. There is surely enough time in each day to accomplish everything the Lord wants us to accomplish.

There certainly are times when, in order to accomplish all that the Lord has put on our plates, that we are pressed from one thing to the next in tight fashion. Chances are, we all have days and perhaps even stretches of days like that. However, God gives us grace when we’re under the gun in such a way—and most of us have experienced that grace and strength of the Lord so many times when life seemed to mount up around us! But, if we look at the example of Jesus, we do not see One who lived in a sense of panic nor in a state of exhaustion. I believe God has better for us than that! Even Jesus found “breathing room” in life—and the truth is that our Heavenly Father knows that we need that! When you consider the huge challenge on Jesus’ shoulders during His short life on earth and the fact that He didn’t live life in a sense of panic, don’t you suppose we should be able to do the same—with the help of the Lord?

Let’s consider now the New Testament model for stewardship of time—after Christ ascended into heaven and turned His mission over to His followers, to people who weren’t that different from you or me. Let’s go back to the Ephesians passage. Paul says that we need to live as Children of Light—that’s what he said at verse 8, just prior to the passage we read. We are to “make the most of every opportunity.” We are not to be foolish, “but understand what the Lord’s will is.” When we apply this to the stewardship of our time, this does not mean running around frantically trying to do everything others expect of us. Rather it means that we need to carefully explore how God wants us to invest our time and then simply do so—as Children of Light. And Paul makes it clear that Light not only illuminates, it also transforms. It literally shapes who we are—and even who we aren’t!

Paul applies this first to the matter of living a life of purity. Read through the first part of chapter 5. He admonishes us to be sexually pure and chaste, and to not even let obscenities, foolish talk or coarse joking come from our mouths! That’s a novel thought in our culture today! (a whole other sermon!) He contrasts the Light of Christ with the darkness of this world apart from God—and instructs us to have nothing to do with “the fruitless deeds of darkness.” Rather, we are to spend our lives trying to figure out what pleases the Lord! Sounds like a plan, doesn’t it?! And while we are not to withdraw from this world, we are not to fall into its ways. And He acknowledges that when the Light of Christ shines into our world, it exposes sin for what it is—and we are to let the Light of Christ shine into our lives and let God expose what He wants to expose, in order that nothing will remain that will draw us into the “fruitless deeds of darkness.”

Because we as followers of Christ are indeed Children of Light, we must give such careful attention to how we live our lives. And as it relates to our topic this morning, we must allow the Lord to direct our ways. Each one of us must seek the heart and mind of God in how we are to invest our time and our energies! We must continually seek the heart and mind of God regarding the stewardship of our time!

We are to “make the most of every opportunity”! We are to “redeem” our time! To “redeem” something is to buy it back, so to speak—like someone sold into slavery would have been bought and set free. We are to buy back our time and set it free to do the work of Christ in this world! We would do well to apply the truth of Romans 12:1-2 to the stewardship of our time:
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

Part of what I’m reminded of in this passage is that the ways of the Lord and what He desires for us and from us is often altogether different than “the pattern of this world.” Let me give you an example. Let’s just acknowledge that love itself isn’t generally very efficient!
• When your child woke up in the middle of the night crying from having had a bad dream, it wasn’t a very efficient use of your time to sit and hold her until she calmed down and went back to sleep, was it? But it was the loving thing to do. From our Heavenly Father’s perspective, you were being a good steward of your time—but apart from your love for your child, waking up in the middle of the night and sitting and rocking a crying child wasn’t a very efficient use of your time!
• In the midst of a busy, demanding day, you really don’t have time to deal with other people’s problems, do you? But when someone steps into your office, holding back tears as they quietly tell of some personal tragedy that has just occurred in their life, love demands you alter your schedule a bit to somehow address their pain. Love isn’t necessarily efficient—love always costs us something, and sometimes what it costs is our time.

You get the idea, don’t you? Being a good steward of my time requires that I tune in to God’s heart and see the opportunities to love those He puts in my life. Paul reminds us to “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity…” Only when we examine our lives in the light of biblical wisdom and in the light of the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives are we able to make the most of our time. Otherwise, we absorb the wisdom of our culture and get caught up in the kingdom of busyness.

May God deliver us from that! May He help each one of us be wise stewards of our time, bringing honor and glory to Him and truly making a difference in the lives of others! Let me encourage you to do exactly what we did with the kids a few minutes ago—ask the Lord to help us be good stewards of our time—of every day, every hour, even every minute. Let’s ask the Lord to guide us as we seek to honor Him with our time.