Series: Stewardship
Category: Core Seminars
Detail:
Stewarding Our Time
PRAYER
I. Introduction
Good morning, and welcome to this 9th week in the Stewardship Core Seminar. Last week, we learned about God’s purpose for our rest. And while rest is one way that we steward our time, it’s not the only way. So today, we’re going to expand on the Bible’s wisdom about time and talk about how we should best steward the time that God gives us.
The Value of Time
Let me start by asking you a question: Why is your time important to you?
Time’s a precious thing, isn’t it? Once used, it’s gone. You can’t get it back. It’s different from other things that we steward. For example, with money you could spend all you have but still have opportunity to gain more. Or if you mess up your health, you can seek treatment. But time? Time comes…and then it goes...never to return. You can’t even buy it back—it’s priceless.
There’s also a limit to time. Time is short. Our time is short! In Genesis 2:17, God told Adam that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that he would die.[1] And that’s what happened! James describes our lives on earth this way, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14).
And what about the use of time? Time is needed for us to do anything. We may be full of ambitions and ideas that we can’t possibly do in a lifetime, let alone 100 lifetimes! How are we to perform acts of righteousness[2]
No doubt, our time is precious. But as stewards, we want to know the purpose for our time.
III. The Purpose of Time
So who gave us our time? Well, if you’ve been in this class at all, you know the answer—it’s God . Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning, God…” God, who was before all time, made a beginning of time.
Okay, since God is the author of time. He’s the Master, right? God owns all time—your’s, mine, everyone’s. We can’t just use our time any way that we want. There’s no such thing as “me-time.” The Apostle Paul asks, “What do you have that you did not receive” (1 Cor. 4:7)? Everything we have is from God.
So what’s our job as stewards? It’s to be faithful to God’s purposes for the time he’s entrusted to us. God’s purpose is to use our time to glorify him! Remember 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” And God gives Christian liberty in how to do this. So we shouldn’t look down on others for spending their time differently than us. For example, all Christians must be concerned with things like abortion and missions, but we can’t all serve in a crisis pregnancy center or be a missionary.
What we want to do with our time is to show how great and trustworthy and wonderful God is. That’s our purpose! So we’re going to consider how we can do that, but before we go there, I’d like us first to reflect on how we use time poorly.
The Misuse of Time
We live in a culture that doesn’t value and use time as it should. So what are some ways that we can misuse our time?
Okay, so there are lots of ways that we can waste time. Let’s go through three primary ways we do this.
Laziness
The first is being lazy with our time. In the parable with the talents that we discussed during the first two weeks, do you remember what the Master called the unfaithful servant? He called him wicked and lazy, or slothful[3] That’s because the servant didn’t put the Master’s talent to use and hid it.
When we’re lazy, we’re idle and don’t do anything worthwhile for our Master. We do nothing for our family, friends, church members, neighbors, even ourselves. We’re a dead limb. But it’s worse than that. We’re something more like a leech or parasite. If we can do something for ourselves but don’t, others will often have to pick up the slack. So if the father won’t provide for his family, his wife or children must. But it’s even worse than that! When we’re lazy, we sin. We spend our time contrary to God’s purposes, and we serve Satan’s purposes instead. It’s the lazy who steal instead of work (Eph. 4:28). It’s the lazy who go around gossiping (1 Tim. 5:13). It’s the lazy who get drunk (Prov. 23:21).
We can be lazy with our time in all sorts of ways. We can be lazy with our bodies by sleeping too much or not exercising. We can be lazy with our minds by being inattentive, easily distracted, or daydreaming. Right now, you could be sitting in this core seminar hearing God’s Word being taught but have your mind elsewhere so that it’s of no profit to you. We can be lazy emotionally by not caring about others or not doing the hard work relationships require. And we can be lazy spiritually, not gathering with the church or praying.
I think we’re often tempted to minimize laziness as a personality thing. But friends, the Bible calls laziness sin! It’s a lack of faith in God, our Master. Laziness comes when we don’t believe that anything we do really matters. When we get frustrated by setbacks and give up. When we don’t believe that God is worth serving.
Pursuing Futility
The second way to misuse our time is by pursuing futility. You might not be lazy, but you’re not working to please the Master either.
There’s a reoccurring phrase in Ecclesiastes that describes certain activities as a “chasing after the wind.”[4] This just means that we’re pursuing things that are empty and meaningless and that won’t fulfill God’s purposes. Everything that we do that’s not for God—that is, everything we do that doesn’t come from faith—is futile. “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]” (Heb. 11:6).
It doesn’t matter what you do. You could be achieving straight As, grossing the top sales, parenting successful children. If you’re doing it for anything other than God’s purposes, you’re misusing the time God’s given you. Listen to how the Teacher put it in Ecclesiastes 2:10-11: “I kept my heart from no pleasure…Then I considered all that my hands had done…and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind.” All was vanity because God wasn’t factored into the equation.
We live in the nation’s capital which attracts Type A people who are well educated, hard-working, and high achievers. In a culture like ours, it’s normal to equate busyness with importance and value.[5] We take pride in being busy. “Look at me, I’m getting things done. Everyone needs me.” Such people aren’t lazy,[6] And Christians can often fall into this way of thinking. We’re tempted to think the main point is the work product. And our relationship with God is based on how productive we are for God with our time.
But, friends, productivity alone doesn’t equal godliness. If it’s true that our value to God comes from our productivity, then what about the Christian who’s chronically ill or imprisoned or poor without resources. Their lack of productivity would mean that they have an impoverished relationship with God. Praise God that’s not the case! The thief on the cross was saved only because he believed in Jesus.[7] Our time spent working is only worthwhile if we do what Paul says to do in Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.”
Selfishness
The third way to misuse our time is to be selfish with it. Paul warns the church in Phillipi to “do nothing from selfish ambition” (Php. 2:3) and that we’re to not seek our own interests but those of Jesus Christ.[8]
Are you someone who makes everyone wait for you? Are you often impatient with others? Are you always receiving relationally but not giving? What gets dropped first from your schedule if things get too busy? Things that you want to do or things that would best honor God?
The youth in our day waste time thinking they’ll always have more of it.[9] When we’re young, we’re strong and healthy. It’s the best time of our lives! Yet this is the very time we waste. Instead of using our time for God, we spend it on ourselves. In 1 Samuel 25, Nabal had it all—health, wealth, property, and an intelligent and beautiful wife in Abigail—he could have lived a long, prosperous life with the blessings that God gave him. Yet God struck him dead because Nabal was unwilling to share any food with David’s men. The Master called this selfish servant to account.
A lot of people misuse their time by spending it for their fun and pleasure. Life’s all about leisure and having a good time. “YOLO, baby!” Forget about responsibilities and obligations. Spending time to be happy is all that matters. What worldly enjoyment do you most crave? Television? Hiking? Gaming? There’s nothing wrong with these things in and of themselves. We can use physical activity to rest our minds and mental activity to rest our bodies. But as stewards, we need to consider if our time spent doing these things is showing off God’s goodness and glory?
Others spend their time trying to make a name for themselves. When the people rebelliously built the Tower of Babel, this is what they did.[10] We like to be esteemed and thought well of in relationships. It gratifies our sinful nature. Relationships are a means to the end of self-fulfillment. We want to be the person that everyone admires, that everyone likes. We want to be known as the smartest, funniest, best looking, and most talented. And we use our time to maneuver relationships to increase our self-perceived worth.
Comments or Questions?
The Right Use of Time
In Luke 10:38-42, we see a difference in how time was spent. Listen, as I read this account:
“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
In this passage, Martha spent her time serving Jesus, which was a good thing, but Mary spent her time with Jesus, which was a better thing. And Jesus judged it so.
As Christians, we’re often like Martha and concerned with the things of the world. Yet God gives us our time to prioritize his purposes, not the world’s. Paul writes, “No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him” (2 Tim. 2:4).
As stewards, God wants us to use the time he gives us to obey him. This is what Jesus did when he became man. He said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (Jn. 6:38).
Faithfulness to God with our time has to do with making the greatest use of it. Ephesians 5:15-16 says, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” Let’s go through four primary ways for how to do this. And as we go through them, notice that how we use our time is informed by other commands in Scripture.[11]
Trust God
First, to be faithful with our time, we need to trust God. We saw this with the first two servants in the parable of the talents. They spent their time earning more talents because they trusted the Master’s word and his goodness. Trusting in God is the foundation for how we spend our time because our trust shows off what kind of a Master God is.
When you spend time worrying about something, what kind of God is being portrayed to your friends? An uncaring God. When you use your time selfishly doing only what pleases you, what does that say? That God’s stingy. And if you refrain from reading your Bible and prayer, does that commend God? No, it only shows that God’s not worthy of our time.
Trusting God means taking risks with our time, even when there’s no payoff in sight. You don’t know if that person will ever come to faith, but God tells us to tell others the gospel so that’s what we do. You don’t know if that sister will ever put that sin to death, but you still take the time to pray for her because God hears his children’s prayers. When a coworker calls off sick, you graciously agree to work late because God tells us that we’re ultimately serving him and that he’ll reward us.
Trusting God means spending all our time to obey and make much of him. As Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Php. 1:21). We want to show our satisfaction in Christ, as Mary did when she sat at Jesus’s feet. We want to be deliberate and purposeful with our time, using it all in obedience to God’s commands.
Love Others
A second way to be faithful with our time is to use it to love others. Jesus tells us that the two greatest commandments are to love your God and love your neighbor.[12]
To love others requires time. People are stubborn. There’s a reason Jesus refers to us as sheep. Sheep are stupid animals. They sometimes run away from what’s good for them. And we do the same. If you’re a parent, you know the immense amount of time it takes to raise your children, teaching and reteaching. But while people are the hardest to put time into, they’re also the most worthwhile. After all, people are made in God’s image.
Using our time to love and serve others is also how we can show off our God because he’s a relational God. I love how Paul describes Timothy in Philippians 2:20, “For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.” Timothy seeks the interests of Jesus Christ, not his own interest, and by so doing, he demonstrates concern for the Philippians.
We love others when we put their needs ahead of our own. When we serve them by showing hospitality or taking them to church or a doctor’s appointment or when we meet up with a child from a single parent home. Jesus loved us sacrificially, and we’re following him as we love others.
Loving others is different from people-pleasing.[13] People-pleasing is self-serving because we want others to admire us. To know the difference, ask yourself why you’re doing something? In Galatians 1:10, Paul says, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Once again, we see how prioritizing serving Christ is shown through loving others. And loving others speaks volumes about God. Jesus says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).
Accept Our Limits
A third way to be faithful with our time is to accept our limitations. The psalmist says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” Ps. 90:12.[14]
Let’s face it. Our time on earth is short. But it’s also precisely the amount of time God determines is best for you. There are only 24 hours in a day—not 20, not 30. God created it this way, and it’s part of what he called “very good.” We can’t do everything—only God can. We can’t be everywhere at the same time—only God is. We can’t know all things—only God does. We can feel frustrated by our time constraints, but by not accepting them, we try to be God. Instead, we need to learn to trust the One who ordained those limits. Jesus told Martha, that only “one thing is necessary.”
So we need to embrace our time limitations. God’s not dependent on us to accomplish his purposes. We can’t do it all, and it’s freeing to acknowledge this. Besides, too much of any one thing can negatively affect us. For example, spending too much time working, creates stress, affects our health, and hurts relationships.[15]
Because time is slipping away, we must take advantage of the days while we can. It’s not for us to know the times or seasons that God has fixed for us.[16] But that doesn’t mean we’re to be idle. Instead, God calls us to “Seek the Lord while he may be found” (Is. 55:6).
One practical way of submitting to God’s time constraints is to prioritize the time he gives us. Remember that when Jesus was on earth, he didn’t heal everyone. He prioritized preaching the gospel.[17] How often have we complained that we don’t have time to do something? The truth is that we have the time; we just choose to use it differently.
Prioritizing your time is like making a budget, except your planning time not money. Budgeting time will keep the urgent things from crowding out the important. When scheduling your time, there are a few ways to generally think about what takes priority.
You should always prioritize God first in all things. He’s the reason why we even have time. Now within that primary calling, you should prioritize your secondary callings, those things that you can uniquely do, such as being a parent or spouse. After that, you should prioritize the other things that make for a good steward, such as taking time to rest, eat, exercise, work, relate, etc. Friends, life is crazy, and there will be times when you need to spend more time on a lesser prioritization more for a little while, but by doing so, the goal is to honor those higher prioritizations.
Also, think about when you’re the most productive. If in the mornings, get your more intensive work done then. When are you the least productive? Use that time for tasks that aren’t so demanding. And it’s prudent to not overschedule your days but allow for interruptions. Make time for silence and solitude to help you rest, pray, and refocus. Too often, we can get impatient and angry because we’re too busy and stressed. We don’t make time for others who might need our help. Be realistic and communicative about what you can and can’t do for someone. And recognize that priorities change over life stages.[18]
Rest in God’s Grace
A fourth way to be faithful with our time is to rest in God’s grace. We talked about this a lot last week. We live in a fallen world, and we can’t do all that we plan to do. That’s okay. God isn’t concerned if we’re successful with our plans; he just calls us to be faithful. And he’s glorified when we bring all our schedules, plans, and calendars and lay them at his feet.
Being a good steward with our time means acknowledging that we’re not great enough to accomplish everything. Therefore, we need to humble ourselves to what God has sovereignly planned for us. Psalm 31:15 says, “My times are in your hand.” The godly recognize this. Christians actively obey God by doing what he commands. But Christians also passively obey God by gladly accepting the circumstances He’s ordained for us.
We may feel guilty for not being able to do more at home, at work, in the community, or at church. We may feel overwhelmed by the world problems of how to shelter the homeless, feed the hungry, care for the orphan. But we can’t be everything to everyone—that’s not our job! That’s God’s job! And he receives glory in our weakness. We may not be able to fix the world’s problems, but we know the One who can! And so we hold our time with an open hand, trusting God with our days.
In the context of time, trusting God often means patiently waiting on him. James 5:7-8 says, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.”
Friends, if you’re here this morning, running on fumes from a terribly busy week with another one coming up, you need to rest in God’s grace. In his book, Redeeming Your Time , Jordan Raynor says, “For Christians, the key to being wildly productive is realizing that we don’t need to be productive. Once we realize that God accepts us no matter how many good things we do, we want to be productive for his agenda as a loving act of worship.”
Do you want to thrive in that busy week coming up? Well, it’s not about being better at scheduling or better at organizing or better at delegating. It’s about pressing into this idea that Christ’s work on the cross frees me from needing to be perfect and do everything. He forgives every sin and failure of mine. My greatest burden is gone, and I’m now free to rest in God’s grace. No matter what I face this next week, God’s got me! There’s nothing he ordains for me that he won’t care for me in. Our job is to rest in God’s grace and take joy that we get to serve such a wonderful King. And by resting in Christ, we’ll never have to worry about time again because we’ll have eternal life.
Comments or Questions?
Conclusion
I hope this class has helped you see that our time is not our own and that it’s all God’s given to us as a precious gift to steward to his glory. Why is this all important? To answer that, let’s go back to the final summary verses of Ecclesiastes 12:13-14: “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.”[19]
All this is important because as stewards we will one day give an account to God for every second we spent with our lives. Time is given to us, but it comes with responsibility. Spending time on ourselves won’t stand on that last day. We must be about God’s glory.
Since we’re going to have to give an account, how does that affect your time this next week?
PRAYER
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[3] Doing More Better , Tim Challies writes about the sluggard found in Proverbs: “As you study the sluggard throughout Proverbs you will see that he is a man who refuses to begin new ventures, a man who will not finish what he has begun, a man who will not face reality and, though it all, a man who is restless, helpless, and useless. His life is chaotic because his soul is chaotic” (p. 20).
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[5] The Call , p. 41.)
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[9] Then he shames us that we’ve lost it and that it’s not worth our time to attempt to do anything.
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[13] Crazy Busy , Kevin DeYoung says, “We are busy because we try to do too many things. We do too many things because we say yes to too many people. We say yes to all these people because we want them to like us and we fear their disapproval. It’s not wrong to be kind. In fact, it’s the mark of a Christian to be a servant. But people-pleasing is something else. Doing the cookie drive so you can love others is one thing. Doing the cookie drive so that others might love you is quite another.” (p. 35).
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[18] Then after a stroke disabled her, she began a ministry of writing encouraging notes. At her funeral, Mark Dever asked how many attendees received a note from Helen and nearly every hand went up. What a wonderful example of seeing priorities change as circumstances change.
[19]
