[I’ve taken the main points in this sermon from Rick Warren’s sermon MANAGING YOUR TIME - Growing Through Goal Setting, Part 3, June 2-3, 2006, and added my own thoughts.]
Last Week: (1) Making the Most of Your Time.
This Week: (2) Understand the Lord’s Will.
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 - redeeming the time
NASV - making the most of your time
Life is a trust from God. Life is time. To life well is to manage our time well.
• It’s not about ownership, it’s about stewardship. Everything you have in your life is a gift from God.
• How you invest your time will determine the rewards that you will hold for eternity.
You need to make wise choices.
• The problem is not with time, or the lack of time. It is with our choices.
• You make poor choices and time leaks away. People who achieve much made better choices.
The good news is that God will guide us in our choices.
• Psalm 90:12 [a prayer of Moses], “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Ask God for wisdom to manage our time well.
• And then do your part to LEARN. Good time management can be learnt.
• We summarised Paul’s advice into 4 principles - analyse, prioritize, economise, and utilize.
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.
(1) ANALYSE your lifestyle
Look carefully at what is eating up your life.
• Stop and think about what you want to achieve, your purpose and your direction.
• You don’t get into a car without a destination in mind. Don’t get on in life without some goals.
• Stop and find out where your time leaks are. Don’t waste too much time on things that has no significant value, or eternal consequences.
(2) PRIORITIZE what is important
The stress is on wisdom. We need to make wise choices. We need to prioritize.
• To do that we need to UNDERSTAND what God’s will is. Anything that is of God’s will has to be pushed up the list. You are to focus your time and energy on God’s will.
• This is common sense – if God puts you here and give you life to stay on, He has something for you to accomplish here.
If we use the Purpose-Driven Life book by Rick Warren as a guide, then we can’t run away from these FIVE goals in life.
1. KNOW GOD (worship) and worship Him.
2. GROW UP (disciple) and live like Christ.
3. TOUCH LIVES (fellowship) and love people. Greatest commandments: Love God and people.
4. SERVE NEEDS (ministry) – God gives us gifts and talents for this purpose, not for self.
5. SHARE CHRIST (evangelism) – this is the natural outflow of a born-again life, you can’t help but tell others about it.
Put these FIVE as priorities in your life. God made you for these purposes.
• You will be most happy and fulfilled when you do them. Opting out from any one of these will mean that you’re living less than what you are made for.
• You are not going to enjoy life. Something is missing – and it’s not money, it’s not pleasure, and it’s not things. It’s these 5 purposes, because you are not doing what you are made for.
Once you analyze your lifestyle – look carefully. And then you prioritize what’s important – doing God’s will. Then you come to the third and four steps in managing your time well – economise and utilize.
Eph 5:18-19
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
(3) ECONOMIZE your energy – using a little to achieve much
Paul had said in verse 16 “Make the best use of your time.” Make it count.
• Then he says, I don’t want you to waste your time. Don’t waste your energy.
• See verses 18-20 “18Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. 19Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, 20always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Don’t get filled with spirits. Be filled with the Spirit.
• Getting drunk wastes your energy. You are draining yourself and producing nothing.
• Be filled with the Holy Spirit and do something worthwhile, something productive… like ‘speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.’
• The first one, the energy is not directed (he is wasting it). The second one is directed and useful.
When you are led by the Spirit, you are doing that which is significant and even eternally worthwhile.
• That little contribution you made, when led by the Spirit, can result in eternal rewards.
• You need to direct your energy is doing spiritual tasks, or Spirit-led tasks.
What if I have already got many tasks, what if my calendar days are all full?
• Then you need to do some re-arranging. If you’re too busy to do the five things God put you on earth to do, you’re too busy.
• You can’t keep adding things to your schedule without taking something off.
• When you add something to your calendar, you need to ask yourself, “So what am I dropping?”
• You can’t just keep adding to your life, to your family, to your marriage, to your business. It’ll bog it all down. What are you going to stop doing?
For instance, what if you decide the first purpose of life is to get to know God.
• Then I probably ought to spend my Sunday morning worshipping God.
• I’m going to wake up early, get my bible and prepare my heart for the service.
• And I’m going to pray and just talk to God about what’s on my mind.
• That’s a good thing. And you ought to add that to your schedule.
But if you’re going to add that, you’re going to have to cut something else back.
• And you know what it is? Any late-night activities, television or computer.
• If you’re going to get up early that means you have to cut out something and go to bed earlier. You can’t just keep adding on.
Then the big question comes, Do I want to spend time with God or with my stuff?
• Is it going to be more helpful to have spent time with God or more time with my friend?
• Are those guys really going to help me tomorrow? No.
• So you cut something back in order to have time for more.
This is economizing your energy - reducing or even, if you can, eliminating time wasters out of your life.
• Paul says in 1 Cor 10:23 “Everything is permissible - but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible - but not everything is constructive.”
• There are some things in your life you need to drop, not because they are bad but because you are choosing something better.
• The question of choice is not always between good and bad. It’s between good and better. Good and best.
Paul says, “I can do a lot of things, but not everything is useful or constructive.”
• They are not necessarily wrong, they are just not necessary. They are not necessarily evil, they are just not necessary.
• You do not have time for everything. So some things should never be done.
Put things in the right perspective. Don’t major on the minors.
• The Biblical principle is that whatever you give to Him, He blesses you more in return. It may be an offering of your money, your talent, or your time. You cannot out-give God.
• Put God first in your schedule. Make time for God first.
• Whatever you want God to bless you put Him first in. You want God to bless your family, put Him first in your marriage. You want God to bless your finances, tithe. Put Him first in your finances. You want God to bless your time, give Him the first part of your day. Give Him the first day of every week. Make Him first.
The fourth thing you do, once you’ve started developing these priorities and you’re eliminating time wasters is…
(4) UTILIZE the present
You analyze your lifestyle, you prioritize what’s important, you economize your energy, and then you utilize the present.
That means make the most of today. Most people never learn how to do this.
• Most people never learn how to live in the moment because they’re always focused on the past, or the future.
• They are thinking about the past - regretting the past, resenting the past, or longing for the past good old days. Or they are thinking about the future - worrying about the future, or fearing the future.
• When you’re always looking at the past or looking at the future you are not living in the present.
• You are not focus on the present and effectively using your time in the present. You are actually wasting time.
Don’t get stuck in the past. And “do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.” (Prov 27:1)
• You can’t live in yesterday and you can’t live in tomorrow. You’ve got to live today.
• You’ve got to utilize the present. That’s good time management.
• That means take advantage of today. It means be aware of the possibilities right now in this moment. It means capitalize on the current situation.
Don’t be too caught up by what’s in the future. Rather be concerned about what God is doing now.
• Your future is in good hands, and it is in the hands of the God who is IN the present.
• No amount of work can help you figure out your future, because no one know or control it.
• The Bible says only God knows the future. He alone holds the future.
• God is working here and now, in your life. He is here to guide you, help you, correct you, discipline you, or even reprimanding you for the things He is seeing in your life right now.
• Yet you are so stuck in the past or worrying about your future, you are not seeing what God is doing in your life right now.
Open your eyes to see what God is doing now, and work along with Him.
• God is working today, so let us use today. Do it now.
• Whatever you’re going to do with your life, get on with it.
I have only just a minute, just sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
I didn’t seek it and I didn’t choose it.
I must suffer if I lose it and give account of how I used it.
Just a tiny little minute but eternity is in it.
