Sermon Tone Analysis

! It’s About Time

!! Time Masters

!! December 31, 2006

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Time Masters

!! “Our lifetime is seventy years or, if we are strong, eighty years.

But the years are full of hard work and pain.

They pass quickly, and then we are gone… Teach us how short our lives really are so that we may be wise.”

!!! Psalm 90:10-12

It’s About TIME

We are running full tilt, in the red zone, and on empty.

It’s no wonder that marriages are frayed, children are stressed, and the dog is neurotic.

We live in a day when the economy demands that productivity rates climbs upward even as the quality of life spirals downward.

Computers were supposed to save time and paper.

They don’t.

Washing machines and vacuum cleaners were supposed to take the drudgery out of the work at home.

It hasn’t happened yet.

Packaged and frozen foods were supposed to make it easy to have family meals.

Nope, that’s not happening either.

Time is not the enemy.

We can, with God’s help, make friends with time and enjoy abundant life.

Jesus shows us how to live life by becoming the master of time.

!

A Lifetime In Minutes

Dr. Leslie Weatherhead, in his book, /Time for God/ has a mathematically calculated schedule which compares a lifetime of “three score years and ten” with the hours of a single day from seven in the morning to eleven at night.

!! If your age is 15,

!!! the time is 10:25 a.m.

!! If your age is 20,

!!! the time is 11:34 a.m.

!! If your age is 25,

!!! the time is 12:42 p.m.

!! If your age is 30,

!!! the time is 1:51 p.m.

!! If your age is 35,

!!! the time is 3:00 p.m.

!! If your age is 40,

!!! the time is 4:08 p.m.

!! If your age is 45,

!!! the time is 5:16 p.m.

!! If your age is 50,

!!! the time is 6:25 p.m.

!! If your age is 55,

!!! the time is 7:34 p.m.

!! If your age is 60,

!!! the time is 8:42 p.m.

!! If your age is 65,

!!! the time is 9:51 p.m.

!! If your age is 70,

!!! the time is 11:00 p.m.”

[1]

[2]Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979).

/Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers/.

Garland TX: Bible Communications.

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Jesus was the Master of Time

!! Runner with torch

The Greeks, well known for their competitive spirit, invented the art of competitive running.

There were many races that were run during the course of their frequent Olympic competitions.

We are familiar with the marathon and high hurdles as well as the myriad of short course races they also ran.

But there was one race which held periodically outside of the Olympic competition that was as highly regarded perhaps even more so than all the other competitive races.

This race was called the torch relay.

The race which spawned the modern day Olympic torch race and ceremony, often took place in the streets and alleys of Athens.

Ten or twelve men would assemble before the city fathers, each carrying a torch, a simple bound bundle of twigs inset in a hollow containers.

The twigs were coated with tar and then, one by one, each torch was lit from the same flame.

On their marks, the runners were sent out as a group and guided along a course that had been laid out among the city streets on which obstacles and barriers had been placed.

The object of the race was to cross the finish line with your torch still lit.

You could not stop and put the torch down or prop it anywhere.

You had to hold it high and run with as much integrity as possible.

In this race the victory seldom went to the fastest or the strongest.

This was a race that depended upon timing and rhythm.

To keep that torch lit required the ability to hold it properly, shielded from objects along the route and held away from the wind.

If you ran too fast, you might put out the flame.

If you ran to slow, the tar might burn up completely before you reached the finish line.

If a runner’s torch flamed out, there was no relighting it.

He was forced to drop out.

The winner of the race was the first man to cross the finish line with his torch still lit.

Winning was dependent upon endurance and timing, not speed.

As I study Jesus’ life I am amazed that He never seemed to be in a hurry.

Although He was doing the most important job in history (redeeming the world), and although He knew He only had a few years to do it, He never ran.

He made time to consider the flowers and the birds of the air.

He had time to put his hands on the little children and bless them.

The whole time Jesus was working his way to the goal and task that God had put before him.

It was all in the timing!

Even his appearance on earth as one of us came at the right time.

!

Jesus Came at the Right Time

!! 4 But when the right time came, God sent his Son who was born of a woman and lived under the law.

5 God did this so he could buy freedom for those who were under the law and so we could become his children.

!!! Galatians 4:4

It really is all about the timing.

Even Comedy is all about the timing…  From B&W Slapstick movies with Laurel and Hardy to all kinds of people falling down in America’s Funniest Video’s  slapstick is funny when the timing is right.

We like watching people crash into things.

It’s funny – when the timing is right.

It’s tragic when the timing is bad.

My family remembers the time I slid down the wall and stuck my head around the corner just in time for table leaf to fall on back of my head.

Family laughed while I rubbed the bump on my noggin.

It’s not just comedy… it’s everything in life.

Getting through the city without hitting any red lights feels like you have won a victory.

Walking up to the checkout and finding an empty lane.

Going to the mall the week between Christmas and New Years to and finding a parking spot next to the main set of doors – now that’s timing!

God sent his son to the world at exactly the right time to accomplish his purpose – the redemption of human kind.

!

Jesus had a sense of the right time

!! Teaching in the temple – age 12

“Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

Luke 2:49