[I have taken the main points of this sermon from Rick Warren’s sermon on MANAGING YOUR TIME - Growing Through Goal Setting, Part 3, June 2-3, 2006, and added some of my personal thoughts.)
NIV: Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
KJV: See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
NASV: Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Today I want to talk about what the Bible has to say about managing time.
• Since life is a gift from God, and life is time, then we need to take a good look at the way we use our time.
• If we are stewards of God and not owners, then we need to learn how to manage our life, or manage our time.
Suppose you have a bank account and every morning at 6 am the bank deposits $86,400 into your account. Like this idea?
• The one requirement is that you have to spend it all that day.
• You cannot leave it for the next day. At night, when you go to bed, any money left will be taken away.
• What would you do? You will spend every cent! You will find a way to use up everything. Why waste it?
That is exactly what God does with you every 24 hours.
• He gives you 86,400 sec. God says you can use this any way you want to use it.
• But at the end of the day any that’s unused or misused or didn’t use, you lose.
• It will be gone for good. You’re never going to get it back.
Someone computes that if you live to be 70 years old…
• You will spend 23 years sleeping, 17 years working.
• You will spend 11 years of your life watching television and playing. You’ll spend 6 years of your life travelling in a car, bus, train or plane.
• You’ll spend 6 years of your life eating (some of us a little bit more than that). You’ll spend 2 years of your life getting ready (except women – that will be 19 years!).
• If you are a Christian going to church, you will spend 1 year in church.
The Bible tells us that life comes from God. So life is a trust.
• It is more of a stewardship thing, rather than an ownership thing.
• God says I have entrusted certain things into your hands. I have given you time. I have given you money. I have given you abilities. I have given you relationships. I have given you intelligence. I have given you freedom of choice.
Everything you have in your life is a gift from God. God says I trust this to you.
• It’s entrusted to you during your years on planet earth.
• He is going to see how you use your time, how you use your money, how you use your intelligence.
• He is going to watch what we do with what we are given.
All that we have is this 70 or 80 years here on earth. That’s not a lot really.
• Then you’re going to die and that’s going to be the end of your body on earth.
• But you’re going into eternity and in eternity you will live for thousands and thousands and trillions of years.
The Lord says that your rewards are in heaven.
• We’re going to be rewarded in heaven, and they will be determined by how faithful you were with what you were given here on earth.
• In order words, are you faithful with the trust you have been given? Your time, your money, your abilities, your intelligence…
So today I want to talk about managing our time. I may go on to talk about managing your money the next time.
• The Bible says here in Eph 5 that it is a mark of wisdom if you can make the best use of time - Live not as unwise but as wise… do not be foolish…
• People who manage their time well are wise.
The problem is not with time. It’s not a lack of time. The problem is with our choices.
• The problem is not that you don’t have enough time. The problem is you don’t use it wisely. You make poor choices.
• And poor choices become the source of stress and strain in our life.
• We are not at the mercy of our circumstances, or what is being thrown at us.
• The Bible stresses the fact that God has given us the freedom to choose.
We all have the exact same amount of time. You and I and everybody around you have 168 hours a week.
• So the people who are more effective than you, the people who are more successful, the people who get more done than you, what’s the difference?
• Do they have more time? No. They just make better choices.
And that’s your choice. The power of choice is in your hands.
• You can make better choices in how you choose to use your time.
• So selection is the name of the game, the things you pick out in life as your priorities.
• You’ve got to focus your life and know what matters and what does not matter.
• And we have to re-evaluate our choices all the time, because we can easily stray off-course. And then we find ourselves under stress and all our energy drained.
The good news is that God will guide us in our choices.
• Frankly we need His help. That’s what this book is for.
• “Be very careful then, how you live…” means it is a skill we can learn.
• Managing your life or more precisely, managing your time can be learned.
• Psalm 90:12 [a prayer of Moses], “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Circle or highlight the words “teach us.”
• You can be taught how to be more effective with your time.
• So we are going to learn from Paul’s advice here in Eph 5.
• We can summarise Paul’s advice here into 4 principles. I borrowed the words from Rick Warren – analyse, prioritize, economise, and utilize.
15Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
(1) ANALYSE
The first thing is to look carefully at how you live.
• God wants us to be wise in the way that you manage your time.
• So you need to think about your purpose. Have a direction to your life. Have a goal or an objective. Know why you are here on earth.
• You can be at the mercy of whatever hits you, or you can decide to chart your path.
You need to slow down or even stop, and take a good look at all that you are doing.
• The Bible says you’ve got to look carefully at your life.
• What eats up most of your time, because that’s eating up your life?
• If you want to save time, you need to figure out where you are losing it first.
• Find out the time leaks, identify the time wasters.
It’s like in money; you need a control (a budget we call it).
• You can be spending and spending without taking a look at what’s in your wallet.
• A budget is telling your money where you want it to go, rather than wondering where it went.
• If you find yourself asking all the time, “Where did my time go?” your life (I hate to tell you this) is already out of control. If you don’t know where your time is going then you are not in control. You need to stop and analyze your lifestyle.
Rick Warren has this suggestion, quite helpful. Just for 2 days of the week, write down what you did and how much time it took. It’s going to be boring and tedious, but just do it for a few days.
Then after you’ve done that, the second part of it, is you ask yourself the tough questions and you look at that and you say things like “Is this really the way I want to spend my life? Is this the best use of my time? Is God pleased with how I’m using my time?” You ask yourself the tough questions.
This is what it means to look carefully at your life – what the Bible says.
People who are sick (sugar or cholesterol level too high) understand the need to watch what they eat.
• We need to look at time with the same attitude, because time is our life.
• So this is step one – look carefully at what is eating up your life.
• You can’t figure out what to do with your time until first you know where it’s going. You analyze your lifestyle. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for (2).
(2) PRIORITIZE
15Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Wisdom is involved. “Do not be foolish” – you can make foolish choices.
• But UNDERSTAND what God’s will is. Circle this word.
• You are to focus your time and energy on God’s will for your life.
This only makes sense. If God put me on earth then God has something for me to do on earth.
• And I better do that, because that is a meaningful and purposeful goal, and worthwhile thing to do.
• If my rewards in heaven are based on what I do now, then I need to ask, “Did I do the right stuff with my time, my money, my gifts and everything else?”
• If God is going to reward me according to how I live now, then it only make sense that I watch how I use my time.
What is God’s will for you? He says you should UNDERSTAND what THE Lord’s will is. So what is God’s will for you? What does He want you to do with your life?
• If you’ve read the Purpose-Driven Life book and the five purposes that Rick Warren writes about, I think you are not too far off.
• He sums it up very well. We can say that God has these 5 purposes for your life - worship and discipleship and fellowship and ministry and evangelism.
1. The first thing is to KNOW GOD, and worship Him. No matter what you are doing today, don’t drop this! Don’t ever drop this. You are making a big mistake if you do. You are made for this. Is worship of God taking up a big part of your life?
2. The second thing God wants you to do with your life is He wants you to GROW UP. He wants you to grow to be like Jesus, and to live just like Him. Is this your concern today?
3. The third purpose God has for your life is to TOUCH LIVES (the Bible calls fellowship). God wants you to learn to love other people. Why? God is love, and He wants us to be like Him. He wants you to learn to love like He loves.
4. The fourth thing He wants you to do is to SERVE NEEDS. That’s why He has given you gifts and abilities, so that you can edify and build others up. In order words, if I am not helping people, preoccupied only with self, I am not living a vital part of my being.
• God didn’t give you your talent for your own benefit. God gave you your talent for somebody else’s benefit. He gave me my talent for your benefit. That way we help each other out.
• Whenever you use your talent to help people, that’s called ministry. Whenever you use what you have to help people, that’s called serving.
5. The fifth purpose of life is to SHARE CHRIST.
• God wants you to go tell others and that’s your mission in the world.
• We are to KNOW GOD, GROW UP, TOUCH LIVES, SERVE NEEDS and SHARE CHRIST.
• Once you experience this kind of life, you cannot help but tell others about it.
These 5 things are the things that matter most in life.
• If you don’t get anything else done, this week or this month, you need to get those done, because God isn’t going to care about the rest.
• Opting out from any one of these will mean that you’re living less than what you are made for.
• That is why many are not enjoying this life. They live in misery and in boredom. Something is missing from their lives – and it’s not money, it’s not pleasure, and it’s not entertainment. They may have lots of friend around them, and yet bored with life.
• It is one of these 5 purposes that God has clearly stated in the Bible, because apart from these, none of the other things are going to last for eternity.
When you have your focus right, it actually simplifies your life.
• I am not teaching you how to get more done in less time.
• What I want to do today is teach you how to do less and be happier.
• I don’t want to teach you how to do more. I want to teach you how to do less.
• To have a good life is not to cram more things in. It is in knowing what matters most – doing that and not worrying about the rest.
When Jesus says, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…” He is asking us to prioritize our lives.
• You can’t do everything. God doesn’t expect you to do everything and not everything is worth doing anyway.
• But you are responsible to do with your life what God put you on this planet to do.
• If you do that and you focus on that, it simplifies life. You will enjoy life.
Learn to say NO. You can’t please everybody. Even Jesus can’t please every body.
• Only a fool would try to do what even God can’t do.
• If you can’t do everything, then you will have to disappoint some people.
• You just cannot make everybody happy. That’s not your job.
• Your responsibility is to please God.
Write this down: I have just enough time to do God’s will.
• You’re never going to have enough time to please everybody. So forget it.
• Put first things first. You’ll live a happier and fulfilling life.
• Jesus did that very well. Just 3 years and He has done all that He needs to do.
• And it was a great success – He saved the world by the cross, trained up disciples to bring the Gospel to the world, got His words penned down. All just in 3 years.
Once you analyze your lifestyle – look carefully. And then you prioritize what’s important – understand the will of God. Then you come to the third and four steps in managing your time well – economize and utilize. We’ll cover that next week.
