Time is of the Essence

Thoughts: Life is but a vapor - spray bottle

Intro

Last week we finished up by talking about how we combat materialism and idolatry of the heart. We came to the conclusion that the best way to fight it is by doing what we were designed to do, and that is to love the Lord our God with everything that we have, right?

Remember, we talked about how we can combat this materialistic longing......remind ourselves with the truth of God’s Word, and ask ourselves how what we want or need to have is going to help us glorify God?

Well, we’re going to go another step forward this week, looking at the idea of how we can glorify God with our time

I can hear you guys now, “I don’t have time”

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Where going to see how one of the greatest ways we can evidence our love for God is by using our time to love others as well.

What we see here is a command to make the best use of our time, because our days, these days we live in, they are filled with evil.

Now, I see two main ways that we abuse time we are given.

Now, what does it mean when Paul says the days are filled with evil?

1. We give ourselves to too many things, even good things, being “busy”, and don’t leave time for God.

2. We give ourselves and our time to the wrong things, being parts of things we shouldn’t be, spending time with people we know we shouldn’t, watching and playing media that is bad for us.

What he means is, we’re surrounded by a multitude of time-sapping activities that take our attention away from glorifying God, thus making them evil, as innocent as they may seem.

See, we’re surrounded by all these things that are vying for our attention, battling for our attention.

We’ve got sports

we’ve got school

we’ve got snapchat

we’ve got instagram

we’ve got our phones in general

we’ve got jobs

we’ve got friends

we’ve got family

we’ve got relationships

we’ve got t.v.

we’ve got sleep

we’ve got all of these things that on their own aren’t necessarily bad things,

but when we aren’t looking carefully at how we walk, not making the best use of our time, we allow these things to become evil, to become hindrances in our lives and our ability to glorify God.

Basically, we can take the time we have and give it to idols and materials, or we can use it to glorify God.

When all these take the place of God, and His will as verse 17 says, then we’ve got a problem.

And what we do with this realization is ultimately important.

Who’s winning? Right now....who’s winning in your life.

Here’s how you know. How much time is spent in this (God’s Word), compared to how much time is spent in any of these other things.

tells us we are His if we abide in His word. So, not only start in His Word, but remain in His Word.

Some of you tell me every single time I ask if you spent any time in God’s Word this week, you tell me that you don’t have time.

And you know what, that is an absolute total lie, and you know it, and I know it.....and it’s a lie we all use.

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We all have time, it’s just a question of whether or not we are truly willing to give it to Him. Whether or not He is the one we worship, or we are.

Listen to this: A study revealed that an average seventy-year-old man has spent twenty-four years sleeping, fourteen years working, eight years in amusements, six years at the dinner table, five years in transportation, four years in conversation, three years in education, and two years in studying and reading. His other four years were spent in miscellaneous pursuits. Of those four years, he spent forty-five minutes in church on Sundays, and five minutes were devoted to prayer each day. This adds up to a not at all impressive total of five months that he gave to God over the seventy years of his life. Even if this man had been a faithful churchgoer who attended Sunday school and three one-hour services per week, he would have spent only one year and nine months in church!

A study revealed that an average seventy-year-old man has spent twenty-four years sleeping, fourteen years working, eight years in amusements, six years at the dinner table, five years in transportation, four years in conversation, three years in education, and two years in studying and reading.

And that’s from 1989, I think it’s fair to say our time on entertainment has probably gone up. Ironically, our time working has probably gone down.

His other four years were spent in miscellaneous pursuits. Of those four years, he spent forty-five minutes in church on Sundays, and five minutes were devoted to prayer each day. This adds up to a not at all impressive total of five months that he gave to God over the seventy years of his life.

We have to make the time, and we have to use the time we make to glorify God.

Even if this man had been a faithful churchgoer who attended Sunday school and three one-hour services per week, he would have spent only one year and nine months in church!

James talks about this idea of time as well, which some of you may remember from our walk through James. Listen to this in

Life is but a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes

Water Bottle

What James is saying is, in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of eternity, your life is nothing more than a mist.

Spray water bottle

Did you see it, it was there and gone in an instant.

That’s what James is saying. We have very little time to make an impact on earth.

Have any of you ever seen “Gladiator”?

What does the main character say in that movie, do you remember?

He says, “Brothers, what we do in life, echoes in eternity.”

And it’s true, what we do with our life on earth will have ramification on eternity. Believers will live for God’s glory, and will make that known. Unbelievers will live for themselves and trivial pursuits.

So, what will you do with your mist of a life? You can live it for yourself, using it to impact nobody significantly, or you can use it for God, impacting others for Him.

And that’s what we need to remember. We can glorify God by loving others by impacting them with the Gospel by how we live our lives.

We have to love others.

Look at with me.

When I sprayed the water bottle, how many of you felt it?

What do you mean you didn’t feel it?

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So. you are telling me you didn’t feel the mist from the spray bottle when I sprayed it?

Why not?

Because I wasn’t close enough right?

How about now? No? Still too far?

Now? Still no?

Now. Yep, you felt it that time didn’t you?!?!

Do you guys see the point? If we are so wrapped up in ourselves and spend all this time living for ourselves, having a good time, doing whatever we want to do, our mist, this short life will be over, and we’ll answer for what we did with Him

We have to be intentional, and we have to love people and get close to people and impact people with the life we’ve been given.

And that takes time

And effort

And unselfishness

And did I mention time?

Life is short, life is temporary. But eternity is forever. What are you doing with the mist that is life? What are you doing with the good news that you know about? How are you loving people with the little bit of time that you have?

Remember, just like Maximus said in Gladiator, “What we do in life echoes in eternity.”

What is your life and your time saying?