The Clock Is Ticking
10/4/98 Psalm 90 Luke 6 46:-49 Stewardship Of Time
When we hear 10, 9, 8,7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, when we get to zero, we all expect something to happen. It might be an explosion of a bomb going off, or it might be the final seconds of a game before we burst out in joy over our victory. There is the end of something and the beginning of something else. From the moment we are born, we are assigned a clock which is ticking. We like to think the clock is ticking in our favor. When we see a little child, we think, that child has seventy or eighty years ahead of him or her. The reality is, the child is losing time at the rate of 86,400 seconds each and every day.
By the time the child reaches 35, the child will have 500 days left to live. This 500 days is based on subtracting the time spent sleeping, working, tending to personal matters, hygiene, odd chores, medical matters, eating, traveling and miscellaneous time stealers from the next 35 years. When we think of stewardship, we often think of money, but time is something God expects us to be good stewards of as well. How we spend our time is going to be of tremendous importance when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
Have you ever heard someone say, "I would like to read the Bible but I just do not have the time." If you were to read the bible from Genesis to Revelation at the speed of someone doing the Scripture reading it would take seventy one hours. If you broke that down into minutes and divided it into one year, that means in only twelve minutes a day, you could read the Bible from cover to cover.
How many of us who do not read the Bible, can honestly say to God, God I just do not have twelve minutes a day to devote to your word. I have to talk on the phone, I have to fix my hair, I have to watch TV, I have to get some rest. Now God one of these days I am going to get around to it. The days will turn into weeks, the weeks months, the months years. Some of us will die having never read the entire word of God.
Part of being a good steward according to God is to study the word of God so we can apply its message to our lives. Part of our problem as Christians is we are holding on to errors and beliefs about how to behave in a given situation which are totally against the word of God. Too many of us are doing what we think is right, instead of doing what God has told us to do in the Bible.
Jesus put it this way, "I’m getting tired of hearing you call me Lord, Lord when you will not do what I say." We go around all the time, "Lord, I need this. Lord will you help me over here. Lord I’m in need of a miracle. Lord I need your wisdom. Lord I need more patience. Lord, help me to get a raise."
If we are going to call Jesus Lord, let’s do what Jesus says to do. Jesus is not impressed with us showing up for church once in a while. The devil comes to church every Sunday just to try to keep some of us from hearing what God wants to say to us. Jesus wants to get in on the inside of us so that He can change our way of thinking and doing things.
When Jesus finished preaching, there were people who would come to Jesus and say, "Lord, boy that was really a good sermon today. You really told it like it was." Jesus would say, "Well are you like rock or like the sand." The person would say, "What do you mean like a rock or like sand." If you are a rock, you are going to go back home and to your job and put this message into effect. If you are like sand, this message is not going to do you a bit of good.
Think of how you spend your time. Are you spending your time on the rock or on the sand. All the time wasted on sand is just wasted. I want you to meet Raoul. Raoul was a young individual who came from a very poverty stricken background. Raoul was determined when he grew up, he was not going to be poor. His kids would have the good things of life, and his wife would never suffer as his mother suffered to make ends meet. Raoul worked hard in college and went on to get his MBA. Everybody who met him would say, now that’s somebody that’s going somewhere. One day that guy is going to make it big.
Raoul was hired by a good company. He got married and had a couple of kids and they lived comfortably. But Raoul was driven with the need to accumulate more. He worked more and more hours on the job. He moved up the company ladder. He invested his money well and made a killing on the market. The guy had success written all over him. His wife asked him if he could finally cut back on work so they could spend some time together. He told her that after this next big move, he would cut back but right now he really needed to plow himself into the job. He kept climbing the ladder socially and economically and won the admiration of many.
One day Raoul realized that he had gone as far up the ladder as he could go. Again his wife asked him, to come back and spend some time with her and the kids. He told her, "you know honey, I’ve gone as far as I can with this company. I’m just forty-five. I’ve got a plan I want to tell you about in the morning after I run some numbers on the computer. Sitting at the computer Raoul was thinking, I’ve made a lot of money with these stocks, but I don’t want to keep it all here. I’ll sell them and buy even more stock, and hopefully double what I’m making now. Boy I’ve got a lot of good things. A beautiful home, a Mercedes and a Lexus, and money in the bank to boot. My wife is right. I’m going to kind of sit back and sort of chill out on life and do what I want to do."
While he was admiring his great skill and accomplishment and looking over all the materials he had gathered for his future, for the first time he heard God speak. God said, "You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself." With that message, Raoul grabbed for his chest. He fell over on his computer and his investment plans for the future and He died. His wife found him there at desk the next day simply looking as though he had fallen asleep.
Jesus said, "This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but it not rich towards God. God knows all about our plans and our dreams. He knows all about what it is we plan to accomplish. He knows all the hours we’re putting in and the sacrifices we’re making. But God knows something we don’t. God knows when our clock is going to stop ticking. Just when Raoul thought he was ready to enjoy it, he lost it all.
But the tragedy was not in losing his wealth. The tragedy was he had gained his wealth at the expense of his soul. His stewardship of his life was an utter failure. He had been prepared in advance for every board meeting, he had prepared in advance for every interview, he had prepared in advance to make sure his financial situation was in order, but when it came to the biggest meeting of his life, the most important interview we must all experience, and examination of his account in heaven before the throne of God, he was totally unprepared.
The only one who could possibly provide him with any assistance at the judgment seat of God, was Jesus Christ. But all through his life, he had been too busy to make time for Jesus. He could not be bothered with the ministry of the church. He had to work overtime and extra-time. He had to go to this meeting and that meeting. He had to play golf with the right group and go to the proper social functions. Surely God understood all this. Surely Raoul would understand that it is only fair, if Raoul did not have time for Jesus when Jesus needed Raoul, Jesus may not have time for Raoul when Raoul needed Jesus.
My friends Jesus put it this way, Mat 16:24 -27 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.
When we provide a stewardship of how we spend our time, it will be based on what we have actually done, not what we intended to do. Nobody is going to be rewarded for good intentions. The psalmist prayed, "Lord teach us to number our days." Our problem stems from us overestimating the time we have left. What do John the Baptist, good King Josiah, and Jonathan the son of King Saul all have in common with Jesus. All of them had an appointment with death before they reached their fortieth birthday. Yet each one of them found the time to do the will of God for their lives.
When we truly number our days, we have a different outlook on life. For instance if you knew you only had 24 hours left to live. What book written last year would you want to read? What soap opera would you desperately want to see? What football game would you not want to miss that night? What amount of that time would you want to rush back and spend at the office on your job? What hairstyle would you feel you had to get? What movie would you just have to see? What outfit would you be dying to buy? What car would you just have to ride in? What pair of sneakers would make you feel good to put on.
Most of us would not be interested in calling our favorite secular artists to come and sit with us. We would not be calling for the bartender to come be by our side. If we had our own business, we would not be calling for all our clients and customers to come be with us. No must of us would be calling for our family and close friends. Some of us would even want to have a worship service remembering the goodness and promises of God. We will have accepted the ticking down of the clock and the final countdown, not as a great event to be feared, but as a passage into the eternal presence of our God. We would not be approaching the judgment seat of Christ with fear, but rather with assurance that Jesus is going to accept us into His kingdom.
The reality is, we do not know how much time we have left to give in service to God and to each other. What would you say to your child, if you knew today is the last time you will get to see them? What would you say to your parent, if tomorrow was your last time together? What would you do differently toward your husband or wife this week, if you knew this week was your last one together? My friends it should not take a crisis in life for us to love another as Jesus told us to do.
Part of being a good steward of our time is loving people. Jesus put it this way, "a new commandment, I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. By this will everyone know that you are my disciples." Every now and then take a look at the obituary page in the newspaper and see how many people your age made an unexpected departure out of this life. The chance we have today, is a chance that’s not going to come again. You cannot love people without investing some of your time in them. You cannot love a church without investing some of your time in its ministries. You cannot love God without carrying out God’s commandments in your life.
Satan will always have something to offer to us to cause us to waste time. That which seems so important today, may only be something which kept us from making the most of the time God gave to us. Does your life reflect a life that is seeking to build the kingdom of God around it? Does it reflect a life of you building your own little kingdom, not that much differently from Raoul.
Good stewardship of our time does not mean we spend every waking moment of our lives trying to get to church or doing something in the church. Good stewardship of our time begins with the realization that God has given each of us a certain number of days to live. God may or may not give us any warning as to when that time is up. There will never be a better time for us to begin to seriously serve the Lord than right now, because that’s the only way to make the most of the time we have left.
A good stewardship of our time, recognizes all of our time belongs to the glory of God. Whatever we do, which cannot be done to the glory of God, needs to be eliminated from our lives. Every day the clock is ticking. Each time you look at your watch, look at your spiritual watch and ask, I’m I doing what I’m doing to the glory of God.
Our aim as Christian is not to be as wealthy, healthy, and happy as possible. If God wants us to have wealth, He knows how to get it to us. He knows how to keep us healthy. He knows how to keep us happy. We do not have to miss church and Bible study in order to pursue those kinds of things. Our aim as Christians should be to be as rich toward God as we can be before the clock stops ticking. To be rich toward God is to be in the place of saying, "God I want as much of you as I can have no matter what." "God I want to be filled with your Spirit so that wherever I go, people can not but help see Jesus in my life."
Each of us here determines each day, just how much of Jesus we are going to let into our lives. You have got as much of God in you right now as you want to have. I guarantee you, a large part is based on your stewardship of your time. If you do not have time for God in your schedule, you do not have much of God in your spirit. You can want as big a bank account as you would like to have. Your bank is not going to limit what you put in. You can even brag that you have a million dollars in your account when you’ve only got 10 dollars. The bank has no problem with you bragging. The only time you will run into a problem is when you try to take out more than you have put in. The bank says, wait a minute, until you invest some more, you can’t receive any more.
We want to take more out of God than we have put into the relationship. The only problem is we have not invested enough. We are right back to the reason why some build houses on rock and others on sand. You can build a lot quicker on sand, because it does not take as much work as finding the right rocks, then breaking them up into pieces, then cementing them together and leveling them off. We all look as if we are building houses on rocks today, but some of us are not going to stand when the storms come.
It’s one thing to blow it in this life, because God is more than willing to forgive us and we get another chance. But if we stand before the throne of God and hear the words, "depart from me, I never knew you," when for years we sat around in the church talking about Jesus, then there is no hope for us at all.
In about thirty-three years, Jesus did all that God the Father sent him to do. He gave His life for each of us, so that whether we live to be eight, eighty or a hundred and eight, we could live our lives for God. The clock is still ticking. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and some of us will go to the judgment and on to the lake of fire where we will burn for all eternity in total darkness and tremendous pain because of our poor stewardship of time. Others of us will go before the judgment seat of Christ and we too will give an account of our stewardship of time but whatever happens there we will spend an eternity with God with our without rewards based on our stewardship of our time in this life.
Whether one goes to hell or to heaven is dependent upon whether or not during one of those 36,792,000 minutes of a 70 year old person life, if he or she took just one minute of time to give his or her life to Jesus Christ and make a decision to live for Him. Jesus said "I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me." The Bible says, there is no other name in heaven, earth, or under the earth by which anyone will be saved other than Jesus Christ. Your clock is ticking down letting you know you are running out of time to do what God requires of you. The first step is getting saved. The second is living the life God has for you.
