Number Your Days Carefully

He was making the point that everyone of us is likely procrastinating on something in our lives and he put on the screen a graphic of boxes, each representing 1 week of a 90 year life.

I did one for an 80 year life.

Show first slide

There really isn’t a lot of boxes on that screen is there? When see it in graphical form like that rather than just a theoretical number in your head, it puts things into perspective.

But no one here has all those boxes left.

Show 20 year old slide

Some of you teens and young adults in the room may feel like you so much time ahead of you, and you do, but how will you spend it?

Show 30 year old slide

Most of us in this category are hustling through everyone of those weeks, just trying to get through diaper changes, meal times, bed times, ball games, and homework.

It is often hard slow down enough to understand how significant each of those blocks are.

Show 40 year old slide

Half way. This is often the season many of us go crazy.

Feeling like like is passing us by, we grasp for things that might fulfill us, yet they only satisfy us for a few more blocks.

how will we live the second halve?

Show 50 year old slide then 60 year old slide

Perhaps today is a good day for a football analogy.

We are into the 3rd and 4th quarters aren’t we.

Though it might seem that time is running out, the argument I want to make is that in Christ there is always time to use our days carefully.

That was what Moses said in the Psalm, “number our days CAREFULLY”

How does this relate to living a generous life.

The resource we have most readily available to us is time.

Time to serve, time to work, time with our kids, time with our spouses...

So how are we going to spend these days, and how are we going to keep from wasting the ones we have left.

1 Corinthians 10:23–33 CSB

23 “Everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up. 24 No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person. 25 Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, without raising questions for the sake of conscience, 26 since the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. 27 If any of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions for the sake of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience. 29 I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? 30 If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I criticized because of something for which I give thanks? 31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, 33 just as I also try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own benefit, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved.

How to not waste your days.

1) Fight the lure toward SELF-AUTONOMY.

1 Corinthians 10:23–24 CSB

There are quotations around the slogan Paul repeats here.

It is the same one he has already spoken about in chapter 6.

It is perhaps something the Corinthians were saying or something that they had heard taught, but had taken it too far or was misconstrued.

Either way, Paul is confronting a sense of personal or self autonomy in the attitudes of the Corinthians.

Self-autonomy is the freedom to makes your own choices without the consideration of others and without the bounds of moral law.

Paul has been talking through an issue in the Church in Corinth concerning eating food offered to idols.

This isn’t a real issue we deal with in our current culture, but it was a big deal, worthy of a lengthy discussion in Paul’s day.

What are these converted Jews and new believers to do with food offered to them that was used to worship false gods.

Should they eat the food or decline the food?

We could likely find a lot of parallel discussions in church life as we experience it today.

But the issue boiled down to “how much freedom to we really have?”

There seems to be an attitude in the church that they are free to do what they want to do, live how they want to live, eat what they want to eat.

And Paul isn’t saying they are wrong in principle, there is freedom in Christ.

Things are permissible, but they are not always beneficial.

Things are permissible, but they are not always all that helpful in building up others.

vs 24 is the key to understand what Paul is saying.

The freedom we have in Christ does not free us from the obligation to consider the good of others in the decisions, directions, and aspirations we pursue.

“Let no one seek his own good” means our priority should not be pursuing our freedoms at the expense of others.

We do this so haphazardly at times.

Choosing to spend our time and energies in ways that take away from our responsibilities to our families.

Misordering the priorities of life by placing good things above better, more significant things.

Losing sight of how our decisions affect others around us.

Self-autonomy is an attitude we all struggle with and yet likely struggle to see it in ourselves.

Paul is confront it in us as he forces us to stop and consider whose good we are seeking in the decisions we are making in life.

Yes, we are free, but what are we free to do? According to Paul, we are free to serve.

2) Seek to SERVE not be SERVED.

1 Corinthians 10:25–30 CSB

25 Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, without raising questions for the sake of conscience, 26 since the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it. 27 If any of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions for the sake of conscience. 28 But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience. 29 I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience? 30 If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I criticized because of something for which I give thanks?

Paul gets in the weeds a bit here, describing where and what is permissible in regards to food offered to idols.

The meat market is free game, but the house of an unbeliever must be carefully considered.

The consideration that needs to be made points to the principle Paul is teaching.

1 cor 10 28

1 Corinthians 10:28 CSB

28 But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience.

Verses 29-30 are kind of odd verses. The most widely accepted understanding here is that Paul goes back to the Corinthians attitude addressed in 23-24.

Paul is anticipating an argument here in the 2 questions.

You can hear them say “what do I care what they think about the food?” “Who do they think they are telling me what I can and can’t eat.” “They need to loosen up a bit, get with the program.”

Paul is making the point in 25-30 that the our attention in life cannot be about being served, but instead it ought be be driven by service to others, at whatever the cost.

It comes down to the question of “what am I fighting for?”

Liberty is a biblical doctrine.

Galatians 5:1 CSB

1 For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.

God wants us to walk in in freedom, to not be weighed down by the weight of sin, the concerns of the world, and the temptations of the flesh.

But walking in freedom doesn’t mean walking on others.

Our personal liberties of being a follower of Christ frees us to serve, not to be served.

That is why God gives us gifts for His service.

That is why He frees us from having to prove ourselves and free ourselves from condemnation.

Our freedom in Christ is a freedom to die to ourselves and live for Christ.

3) Live for a much better PURPOSE.

1 Corinthians 10:31–33 ESV

31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 32 Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, 33 just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved.

Here is the culmination of Paul’s teachings from 8:1 until now.

In absolutely everything we do — from the menial, everyday things to the fun and exciting — we do it for the glory of God.

We drink and eat, work and play, love and serve in ways that strive to win the world for Jesus. Whatever we do, we do it to say something about what God has done for us and about how much he and his love mean to us. We do it for his glory, and not our own.

There's a general call to take up your cross and to follow Jesus in the everyday stuff of life.

So the call to die to self is a call in all aspects of our lives to die to ourselves.

What it means to die to self is not to live a miserable life, it's to not live for our own glory, for own pleasure, for our own agendas,

but instead to live as Christ, to live for the glory of Christ, in our parenting in our marriages, in our workplaces, in our schools, on our teams, and in all aspects of our everyday lives.

We may say “but Jeremy I just want to be happy.”

But where's happiness found?

It's not found in our circumstances, it's not found in the situations that we find ourselves in, it's not found in in the pursuit of pleasure or the escape of pain

it's found in Jesus, it's found in the life that he's called us to live, it's found in pursuing his glory over anything else.

One of my favorite preachers John Piper his famous quote is this that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him; and we are most satisfied in him when God is most glorified in us.

What he's saying in that statement is that the happiest you're ever going to be is when you are giving living for the glory of Jesus and all aspects of your life.

How do we not waste our lives?

We live for a much much much greater purpose.

John Piper ask this question: Is it a sin to not follow 1 Corinthians 10:31?

His answer is yes. “it is sin to eat or drink or do anything NOT for the glory of God. In other words, sin is not just a list of harmful things (killing, stealing, etc). Sin is leaving God out of account in the ordinary affairs of your life; sin is anything you do that you don’t do for the glory of God.” John Piper

Everything we do as a parent is an opportunity to glorify God to our kids, our spouses, and to others watching.

Marriage is intended to be a relationship that displays the grace and goodness of god toward his church.

We are to work our jobs, do our homework as unto Christ (like we are doing it for him).

Time is fleeting friends, opportunities are wasting away.

Let us not waste the squares we have left pursuing anything other that the glory of God in this life.

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