God's Time

KiDZ Message

Props - 2 sand-art jars, 6 colors of sand representing parts of how we spend time (sleep, meals, school, play, chores, God)

SLIDE - KiDZ Message

Did you know that God has given each person 24 hours every day?

And he lets us all choose how we use that TIME

Now, your grown ups are also entrusted with caring for YOU, so they may make some of those choices for you now

But you get to make some of those choices yourself. and someday, you will make them all yourself.

Today’s scripture story was about ho grown ups were using their time.

start filling Jar #1

Sleep -> Work (school) -> Meals -> Chores -> Play

And then they looked over at the temple and saw that they didn’t have enough time left.

And they would get to the end of every day and feel like it was never enough.

Do you ever get to bedtime and think “the day is over all ready!? I wanted to do more!”

So God said “you guys are using all your time on YOU, but you aren’t thinking about ME until all your time runs out”

And then he said they should “consider your ways”

What do you think it means to “consider your ways?”

You see, God let’s us make the choice, but he knows that our life is best lives close to him.

SLIDE - KiDZ Big Idea

Life is best when God is first in of all of it

start filling Jar #2, adding God into each step

When I talk to God as I go to sleep Sleep ->

When I look for ways to follow Jesus while I am at school

When I remember to thank God for the Meals

When I remember that God is growing me while I do Chores ->

When I consider how God would have me Play with others.

Today, remember to consider God first in how you use the time he has given you.

Because God knows best how life is meant to be lived. He designed it after all.

Let’s pray

MAIN SERMON

SLIDE - Title

On-Ramp

You can be incredibly busy… and still completely miss your life

We feel busy. Responsible. Needed. Our calendars are full… our days are full…but if we’re honest, something still feels off.

And if you ignore that feeling… you don’t just drift for a week—you drift for years

You can build a whole life… and still end up wondering what it was all for.

What if the issue isn’t that your life is empty. What if the issue is that your life is full—but misaligned?

SLIDE - Big Idea

A full life can still be a misaligned life if it isn’t aligned with God.

Full doesn’t mean aligned

Am I stewarding the life God has entrusted to me—or living it like it belongs to me?

Before we go any further, I want to zoom out for just a moment and show you where we’re going over the next few weeks. Because this isn’t just a message about time—it’s about your whole life.

Most of us live as if our lives belong to us. Our time… our abilities… our relationships… our resources…

But Scripture tells a different story.

Your life is not something you own—it’s something God has entrusted to you. And when we forget that, we don’t usually rebel—we drift.

We fill our lives with good things… even necessary things… but over time, what matters most gets pushed to the margins.

So in this series, we’re going to slow down and take an honest look at what God has entrusted to us— our time, our talent, our relationships, and our resources— and ask what it looks like to live all of it aligned with Him.

If you can relate to that feeling—being full but not sure you’re aligned—then you can relate to the people in the story from this morning’s scripture reading.

Scripture Exposition

Scripture - (Haggai 1:1–15)

Context: God’s people had returned from exile and were supposed to rebuild the temple—but instead, they got focused on rebuilding their own lives

Characters:

Haggai the Prophet

Zerubbabel the governor

Joshua the High Priest

1. The Situation (vv. 2–4) - “The time has not yet come…”

But they are rebuilding:

Their own homes, comfort, and lives

v. 4 “Is it a time for you yourselves to be living in your paneled houses… while this house remains a ruin?”

They didn’t reject God—they just kept putting Him off until everything else was handled

They weren’t doing nothing. They were doing everything—except what mattered most.

2. The Symptom (vv. 5–6) - “You have planted much, but harvested little…”

They had full, busy, hard-working lives, yet never left like they could keep up. Can you relate?

v. 6 “It’s like putting your paycheck into a wallet with holes in it.”

The people felt like they weren’t getting anywhere. like they were running in place. I imagine tired, and unfulfilled.

“They didn’t have a fulfillment problem. They had an alignment problem.”

3. The Diagnosis (v. 9) - “You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little… because of my house…”

They believed: “We don’t have enough time for God.”

God says: “You aren’t using your time for God.”

v. 9 “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.”

This is easier to fall into than we think. We respond to the immediate demands of life and forget to pause long enough to look up and see where we are going.

The issue is not that you don’t have enough time. The issue is that you’ve been living like your time belongs to you

God’s diagnosis of their struggle was that they had their priorities all mixed up.

Here’s what’s surprising. God doesn’t say, ‘You don’t have enough.’ He says, ‘You don’t have enough because of me. Because I’ve been pushed to the margins of your life.’

That’s offensive if we’re honest. Because we want to believe our lack comes from how much we have to do or how little time we have…not from what we’ve chosen to prioritize.

SLIDE - Big Idea

[pause here]

Full doesn’t mean aligned

That confronts our tendency to play the victim card. It means the problem may not be out there somewhere… it might be exactly the choices I’ve been making or avoiding.

SCRIPTURE - Continue following the Haggai text

4. The Command (v. 5, 7) - “Give careful thought to your ways.”

We don’t intentionally waste our lives—we just don’t look up long enough to notice when we have drifted away.”

Example: swimming in the ocean and being pulled down the beach by the current

Hebrews 2:1 “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

This is why God’s command is not “Shame on you, selfish Israelites!” but

“Give careful thought to your ways.”

5. The Response (vv. 12–14) - “The Lord stirred up their spirits.”

And the people did. The leadership and the people alike took action. They started to work on the temple.

And I love God’s final words here...

v. 13 - “I am with you”

God didn’t wait for them to become better managers. He simply wanted what was best for them, which is always closeness to him first.

Application

So what does this mean for you and me? What does this mean for your life on a Tuesday afternoon?

1. Reframe Ownership

First it means that Time is not something you own. It is something you’ve been entrusted with.

It’s not yours—it’s entrusted

Not “my time”, but the time entrusted to me

Not “my schedule”, but the schedule I have created to manage the time God has entrusted to me

2. Reorder Priority

It’s like Jesus taught us in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 6:33 “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

This is not about adding God to your life. It’s about ordering the life he has handed you around Him.

And you may be hearing this story today and noticing that you haven’t been doing that.

Your life is already ordered around something.

The question is—what is everything else revolving around?

3. Get Practical

God doesn’t just say ‘feel bad.’ He says: ‘Take a look.’

We’ve created a simple tool to help you do this—it’s available at the Connect Center. It’s called the “All of Me Workbook”.

It will help you take a time-inventory and discern what your next steps can be.

Call to action:

SLIDE - this week

“Block 30 minutes this week and give careful thought to your ways.”

The tool this week will be a time inventory

Make it specific:

Where did you actually use the time you were entrusted with?

What/who made the decisions that shaped your schedule?

How was/wasn’t God considered in how you spent the week?

Where might God be inviting you to realign?

Because if you don’t stop and look at your life…you won’t just drift for a week. You’ll drift into a life that’s full… but not aligned with what God intended. A life that feels like the Israelite’s lives in v. 6...

“You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”

4. Guard Against Misapplication

This is not about being at church more. This is about your whole life being aligned with God.

That may mean being at church more so that worship comes first of everything.

It may mean serving on Sundays less so that you are available to walk with people as they start their journey of faith.

That may mean adjusting your bedtime so you can show up to work more focused on Christ’s calling.

That may mean re-aligning your reason for working from “making a paycheck” to “God has placed me here to build his kingdom.”

Conclusion

SLIDE - Big Idea

“You can fill your life… and still miss the life God entrusted to you.

Full doesn’t mean aligned

SLIDE - Title

But when your life is aligned with God, even the ordinary things begin to carry purpose, peace, and direction.

This is the life you actually want. Not just full—but clear. Not just busy—but purposeful. Not just going through the motions—but going somewhere

Because your life isn’t something you own—it’s something God has entrusted to you.

And God knows best how life is meant to be lived. He designed it after all.

Let’s pray.

Prayer

“God, we confess…we’ve been living like this is ours.”

“We’ve filled our lives…but we haven’t always aligned them with you.”

“Would you give us the courage to look honestly…and the willingness to respond?”

“Stir something in us—not pressure…but a desire to live what you’ve entrusted to us well.”