Are You Thankful For Your Time? Series

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: November 12, 2010

Date Preached: November 14, 2010

Church: OPBC (AM)

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Series: Miscellaneous – Thanksgiving/Thankful Heart Sermon

Title: Are You Thankful for You Time?

Text: Ephesians 5:15-16

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Introduction:

There was once a middle aged man who was considering going back to school to get that degree he had always wanted. But he was balking at the idea because he was now over 50 and what good would it do him now.

He went to his dad for advice and his dad asked him how long it would take to get the degree. The man told his dad it would take 3 years of going to school full time. His dad then asked him how old he would be when he graduated after those 3 years. The man said 53.Then his dad asked him, “Son how old will you be then if you don’t get the degree?”

The point of the story is that TIME marches on. Regardless of any decisions we make in our lives – Time marches on! Time is like land in a lot of ways, because there is only so much of it!

Time Management and motivational speaker Denis Waitley once had this to say about time …Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people cannot buy more hours. Scientists cannot invent more minutes. And you cannot save time to spend it on another day! Even so, how much time have you wasted in your past, you still have an entire tomorrow. Success depends upon using time wisely…

Frank Tyger, the great cartoonish once said this about time, …If a man gives you his time, he can give to you NO GREATER and more precious gift…

So if these men, both of whom I have NO idea as to their faith background… if they say this about time, then it stands to reason that this principle is even more true when it comes to our Christian walk and how we live our lives! Amen?

Many of us fail to see this… but for the Christian believer, TIME is valuable! We all have only the amount of time that God gives each one of us… 24 hrs in a day, 7 days in a week and 365 days in a year! But within that 24 hr day, we have 1,440 minutes, OR 86,400 seconds… the point is that as believers we ALL have only a certain measure of time in which to live and do what Christ has called us to do…

And I fully believe that when we stand before Him on the final day… that day of judgment… and He looks at our life, we are going to have to answer to Him on how we managed that time He allotted to us.

What will you answer when called to give an account of your time here on this earth? Will you be able to say that you did all you could? This is something we all will have to face, and something we need to address in our lives on a daily basis. But let’s look at time… and what it really is for us…

First we have to understand that like everything else in the universe…time is a gift from God. So when we begin to see TIME as something God has given to us to redeem for His kingdom… this puts TIME into a different perspective for the believer! It falls into the realm of stewardship…God owns time, He gifts time to us and we are the stewards of HIS time that He has gifted to us...

2nd we must understand that like with time, GOD created and owns all things, and whatever He chooses to gift us with, we are merely the tenants or stewards of that gift from God. So we are going to be held accountable to Him for the use of all those gifts.

But this gift of time from God is a very special gift because all other gifts that He blesses us with conditioned upon this one particular gift from God of TIME.

Others may have more talent than we do…but we ALL have the same amount of time! The rich do not receive more time than we do and the poor cannot receive any less time than we do... The most powerful person has NO more time than you or I do… the weakest person on earth has just as much time as you or I do…

All here on this world have the 24 hrs per day that God has given to us to do what we have been called to do. We all have the SAME amount of TIME! Jesus, Himself was very urgent and careful about the use of this God-given gift of time. Jesus said in John 9:4 [ESV], …As long as it is day, we must do the work of the One who sent Me, for night is coming, when no one can work…