Redeem Your Time

Does Time Control You?

Deuteronomy 5:12–16 NIV

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. “Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

Last week, Tania preached that we need a vision to be inspired, encouraged, and motivated.

We change when motivated by a vision that inspires our decision to change. We then commit to a specific plan of action. In spiritual growth, many people are frustrated because they've tried the things that should bring change, like a quiet daily time reading the Bible and praying, but they haven’t experienced genuine, consistent change. These practices are good, but often, they are not enough to generate lasting transformation. As most practice it, the daily quiet time doesn’t necessarily permeate the rest of our lives, actions, and character. So, to help us, we are continuing in “The SoulShaping Experience.”

Now, earlier, I asked, does time control you, or do you control time? Or better yet, I should ask, does God control your time? We are so busy, yeah. We have work, we have school, we have chores, we have meetings, we have appointments. But then we have TV time, Netflix, Disney, or Hulu.

Then we say we have no time for Bible study/ reading, prayer, meditation, or rest in the Lord, which is Sabbath. Sabbath is not watching the Broncos play. Sabbath is when we rest in the Lord. And if we do not rest in the Lord, then we struggle to control time in God’s will. Instead, time controls you. And there are no excuses.

Joseph was enslaved and still made time for the Lord. Daniel was exiled and an enslaved person, with benefits, and still made time for prayer three times a day, every day of the week. That Sabbath. He was resting in the Lord by prayer.

We've addressed the current state of our souls by looking at the symptoms of soul neglect. Then we looked at the inadequate strategies for change and the power of the Lord's vision for us. Now, we’ll see how to develop the five vital signs of spiritual health.

Matthew 12:1–12 NIV

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

Here is this reality: God/ Jesus, in context, is the Lord of the Sabbath. He is the one who gives rest, that gives His dwelling of His presence. Just as he mentioned, “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” As discussed here, Jesus stated that He is the only one/ thing that can give you rest. Again, it is not video games, football games, sleeping for the whole day, or going to the salon to get a pedicure. Although it may be relaxing, that is not Sabbath. That is not rest in the Lord. Resting in the Lord means you are empowering yourself with The Holy Spirit, which gives your soul rest, strength, and direction to doing God’s will, and life into your spiritual body.

Therefore, I will argue that this should be done daily, although the scriptures mention taking one day of the week's Sabbath. We need to do spiritual discipline, which is the practice of worship for the Sabbath. Prayer, Bible Reading, Fasting, Meditation, and worship are how we keep the Sabbath.

Some of us may be in different stage or season of life. Knowing the full scope of soul care practices will be beneficial over time. As we go through this series and as you read the SoulShaping book and work through the SoulShaping Journal, pay attention to the vital signs or signs and disciplines.

We begin with the theme that God's pace redeems our time. If you don't take the time, you won't experience the change. We live in a bustling culture because we have so many options.

We all know it isn't easy to fit one more thing into your schedule. So, this message is about forming your schedule around Christ rather than trying to fit Christ into some spare time. Aligning your schedule won't happen instantly.

Now that we have discussed the Sabbath and how to use the excuse "I do not have time for the Sabbath," let's discover what time means to us. We need to see it as it really is if we want to make this change.

Time: tyrant or treasure?

Do you view time as a tyrant or a treasure? Time becomes a tyrant when we surrender our freedom to the pressures around us.

There are many studies on time. This one is from at least ten years ago, but the core revelations have remained unchanged. This study found that over a lifetime, the average American will

• spend six months sitting at traffic lights waiting for them to change,

• spend one year searching through desk clutter looking for things they've misplaced,

• spend eight months opening junk mail,

• two years trying to call people who aren't there,

• and five years of waiting in lines.

• They will also spend three years in meetings and learn how to operate 200 different products that come along.

We are indeed busy! Researchers estimate the average American spends over 2,000 hours a year watching television, which is almost five hours a day. How many books could you read in five hours a day? How many projects could you accomplish in five hours a day? We all need time to let down and relax, but the point is that the stewardship of our time is a heart issue.

We can take all the courses we want on time management, but until we get our values straight and understand why we're doing what we’re doing, we will suffer under the tyranny of time.

In addition to our values, there is another heart issue. Some of us struggle with boundaries. We say yes to the wrong things and fail to say yes to the right things. We say yes because we feel pressure from people. We often say yes to things that don't match our gifts and abilities and let others down. And we let ourselves down. Resentment builds, and frustration grows. We find our sweet spot when we learn how to say yes to the right things.

How do we break from worldly desires and expectations? Initially, this could feel like a monumental task, like a rocket trying to escape the Earth's gravitational pull. There's a magnetic pull on our lives that may not be healthy; we may not be living in God's freedom.

We can make lifestyle choices to treasure time. Many scriptures speak about time as a treasure, like Psalm 139:13-16 especially, where it says that each day for us was written in God’s book before they came to be.

Psalm 139:13–16 NIV

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

The Psalmist does not say God has written a specific script for our lives. The Psalmist means that the Lord is with us in every moment, guiding us in God’s sovereign love and providing for us in God’s sovereign power. The Psalmist is straining to communicate the intimacy of God's care for us.

Psalm 90 says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” To number our days means realizing that time has an expiration date, and we don't know the date. Let’s make every moment count.

Jesus’ parable of the talents encourages us to be wise stewards of the gifts God gives us. Grace invested in obedience and stewardship matters to God. We will be evaluated. Spirituality promises that you are closer than you think to a new way of living when you take control of your time and take back your calendar.

We need to examine everything we're doing and then look at what makes the most sense with our stewardship of time, as well as our talent and treasure.

Take hold of the tools that transform time.

Stephen Covey and Robert Merrill developed Quadrant II Time Management. It was first presented in Covey’s bestseller, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. [NOTE: If possible, provide Covey’s grid matrix on a presentation slide or on a piece of paper or draw it to present. In SoulShaping (Second Edition), the matrix is described in Chapter 6 and Notes 28 and 29. The matrix consists of four quadrants, like a box with a vertical line dividing it in half from side to side and a horizontal line dividing it again from top to bottom.

• The top left quadrant is labeled “Urgent” and “Important.”

• The top right quadrant is labeled “Not Urgent” and “Important.”

• The bottom left quadrant is labeled “Urgent” and “Not Important.”

• The bottom left quadrant is labeled “Not Urgent” and “Not Important.”

All the elements in your schedule can be assigned to one of these quadrants. For instance, if people come for dinner on short notice and have only an hour or two to shop and clean the house, you’re in the “Important and Urgent” quadrant.

On the other hand, if you are trying to meet with a financial planner, it may fall into the “Important but not Urgent” quadrant. If you delay too long, however, your finances will become an urgent concern.

Spiritual health means we pay attention to our time so that we don’t live our lives in emergency mode. When we redeem our time, we move from the Quadrant of Crisis (Quad I in the upper left corner) to the Quadrant of Prevention (Quad II in the upper right corner). Quad II is also the Quadrant of Quality, where you take time to think, plan, and anticipate where the problems may occur to avoid living in a constant crisis. The goal is to increase your time in Quadrant II and reduce Quadrant I.

We want to stay up in Quad II as much as possible. Soul care is in Quad II. We can build spiritual reserves in Quad II by recognizing the symptoms of soul neglect, realizing the strategies that won't work, and cultivating the vision that energizes us spiritually. We practice the disciplines that empower our spiritual vitality. Understanding the nature of the various time quadrants gives us the tools to redeem our time.

Redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16)

Ephesians 5:15–16 NIV

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Ephesians 5:15–16 KJV 1900

See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

The King James Version of Ephesians 5:15-16 reads, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” The Greek translation of ‘redeem’ means ‘to buy out from the marketplace.’ It's a word frequently used for paying the price to release enslaved people. If we “buy out” our time, we reclaim dominion over our schedule. We can pray: “Lord, help me redeem my time.”

Sometimes, we are interrupted or must address a crisis. When we return to what we were doing, we can pray, “Lord, redeem the time you entrusted to me. Now I have less time than I expected. Multiply the effectiveness of the time remaining for this project.” Very often, though, things happen to make it a wiser investment. So, we are to bring our time to the Lord and allow him to repurchase it.

The most significant discipline for redeeming our time is enjoying Sabbath rest. The Lord commanded this.

Begin enjoying sabbath rest (Deuteronomy 5:12-16)

God designed us for a rhythm that oscillates between work and rest. Though we may ignore that rhythm for a while, eventually, it will take a toll. When we ignore God's design, we experience the symptoms of soul neglect.

Sabbath is affirmed in creation. The presentation of the Sabbath Command in Exodus 20:11 says, “For in seven days the Lord created the heavens and the Earth.” As image-bearers, we must match God’s holy rhythm of working six days and resting on the seventh.

In Deuteronomy 5:15, the command for the Sabbath is rooted in deliverance. The Lord reminded his people that he delivered them from slavery in Egypt. They were free. Sabbath rest was to be the sign and continual reminder of their freedom.

The Sabbath was originally the 7th day of creation that God set aside for his people. When Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week, Christians shifted to celebrating their worship on the day of Resurrection, the first day of the week.

As followers of Christ, the actual day for celebrating the Sabbath is a bit more flexible than in Israel’s experience. For example, for pastors and those on church staff who must work on Sunday, the Sabbath could be a different day of the week. For example, some keep the sabbath from Thursday sundown to Friday sundown. That's a more likely Sabbath for those who cannot set aside a Sunday. {NOTE: See the Guidelines for Sabbath Rest for more information on practicing it from sundown to sundown].

When you begin to take your Sabbath, whatever time frame you choose, you will start to find that time to rest. Unfortunately, some of us don't even know what the rest looks like. Your SoulShaping book and SoulShaping Journal provides a set of steps for planning your own Sabbath. These include making a list of Sabbath activities that will help you rest and be refreshed and renewed spiritually, not physically, but soddenly spiritually.

Schedule God’s priorities

A final principle on redeeming your time means we schedule God's priorities. As you schedule your Sabbath, schedule time to love the Lord your God and your neighbor as you love yourself.

On numerous occasions, the Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking the sabbath. In response, Jesus taught two fundamental principles. First, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” (Mark 2:27 NLT). In other words, the sabbath was meant to be a time of freedom from work and the burdens of daily living. It was to be a time of restoration and recovery. Like water for a thirsty soul, food for a starving body.

Second, the sabbath is an opportunity to fulfill God’s command to love. “Then Jesus asked them, “Is it lawful to do good or harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4). The implication is that the sabbath is a time for compassionate action, not inaction, especially in the face of apparent need.

Loving yourself is loving the one God has created by his artistry (Ephesians 2:10). We are unique creations, and as we care for ourselves, we can give ourselves away. So, brothers and sisters, to break free from the time crunch, watch your heart, not your watch.