How would you like to receive a check everyday? It would be the same amount as everyone else in the world. No matter how you spent it, you would get the same amount the next day and the next day. Wouldn’t that be nice? Well each and every one of us gets the same amount of time everyday. Each of us has 24 hours in a day. That’s 1440 minutes, and 86,400 seconds. How do you spend you 86,400 seconds?
This month we are going to be talking about the idea of stewardship. When it comes to stewardship, some people reach to protect their wallet, but stewardship goes way beyond money. It includes all of our resources. This week we are going to talk about our time. Next week, we are going to look at stewardship of the Church’s calling. The third week will cover how much God really wants from us. Then the fourth week, we will get around to money. I have been here almost a year now, and I have not yet preached a sermon on money. This will be my first at the end of the month. Contrary to popular, preachers don’t always talk about money.
Time is such a strange thing. It goes at the same speed. It neither speeds up nor slows down. An hour is always 60 minutes, and a minute is always 60 seconds. There are always 24 hours in a day, except when we go off and on daylight savings time. Then you have one 25-hour day and a 23-hour day, so it equals out. There is no way to get more time. You can’t buy and sell time. Every single person on the planet has the same amount of time in the day. The rich don’t have more and the poor don’t have less. The old man in India has the same amount of time as the young girl in Canada. No matter how wise or foolish we are with our time, we get the same amount every day. You can’t put time in the bank for another day. Every day we are presented with another 86,400 seconds to use. God issues us a check each day for 86,400 seconds. How do you spend it?
Turn with me to Romans 13.
Read Romans 13:11-14.
The Apostle Paul confronts us here with the proper use of time. He challenges us to stop and think how we are spending our time. The first thing Paul reminds us is that our…
I. Time is short.
Last week we looked James chapter 4 where he said, “You do not know what tomorrow will bring.” James then compared our life to a mist or a puff of smoke.
Paul is telling us the same thing here. Our time is short. While each of us gets the same amount of time each day, that won’t last forever. Because our time is short, Paul tells us that…
A. It’s time to wake up.
When we are awake we are aware of what we are doing. When we are asleep we aren’t aware. We aren’t aware that we are snoring or tossing and turning.
How many of you talk in your sleep? Tammy says that I do occasionally. Several years ago, I read John Grisham’s book The Firm. They later made it into a movie starring Tom Cruise. The book is about a young lawyer named Mitch who gets a job with a prestigious Memphis law firm. He later finds out that the firm is corrupt to the core. I read this book just a few months after starting to work for a law firm. I must have had some vivid dreams about it. Tammy told me one morning that I had been shouting, “Be careful Mitch. Mitch!” It was the weirdest thing. Tammy thought I was loosing it.
When we are asleep, we have no idea what is going on around us. Paul is saying that it is time for us to wake up. Paul isn’t talking about physical sleep. He is talking about spiritual sleep. Spiritual sleep manifests itself in indifference to what’s going on in the world around us. When we, as Christians and the Church, fall asleep bad things happen. In the earlier part of the 20th century, the Church was the focal point of the community, but somewhere along the way the Church fell asleep and was pushed to the margins of life. Church, even for many Christian, becomes a mere social activity that we engage in only when it fits our schedule.
We must wake from our sleep because…
B. Our salvation is getting closer.
When Paul says that our salvation nearer now than when we first believed, he means our ultimate salvation when Jesus returns. Remember, the first century Church lived with the expectation that Jesus would return at any time. We must also have that same expectation. That doesn’t mean we sell our house and go sit on a hill and wait for him. It means that our lives should be lived in such a way that we wouldn’t be embarrassed if Jesus came back.
Where do you want to be when Jesus comes back? Do you want to be fighting and arguing with someone? Do you want to have stolen goods in your possession? Do you want to be in a compromising position?
I don’t know when Jesus is going to come back, but I sure want to be doing something that is pleasing to him. I want to be spending my time doing something that will not be embarrassing if Jesus comes back while I’m doing it. This comes down to how good we are as stewards of our time. Is it important for us to use our time well? Of course it is. It may be…
II. Time for a change.
We may need to evaluate how we spend our time. Then we may have to make some changes. Paul says in verse that the night is over, and it’s time for a change. Paul says that…
A. The night is over.
Paul says, “The night is far gone; the days is at hand.” When the night is over and we wake up in the morning, we make changes. We change from our nightclothes into our day clothes. We don’t wear our pajamas to work. We fix our hair. We change to scent of our breath by brushing our teeth. If you have a baby in the house the first thing you do is probably change a diaper. We make many changes when the night is over.
Paul is talking here about time. The time for sin is over, and it’s time makes a change. Throughout the Bible, you will find a theme of light and dark or day and night. The light or day represents righteousness. The dark or night represents unrighteousness or sin.
Paul is saying here that the time for sin is past, and it’s time for righteousness. This age is passing away, and the age of Jesus reigning is coming. This age will end when Jesus returns. This is a dark and dangerous world. Sin is the rule of the day in the world, but a time is coming when sin will not be tolerated. We must be ready for Christ’s return. Christ’s return will be daybreak on a sinful world. We don’t know when the daybreak will occur, but we must be ready when it does happen. In an effort for us to be ready when Jesus comes back, Paul tells us to…
B. Change wardrobe.
Paul tells his readers to take off works of darkness, which is sin, and to replace them with the armor of light. Again we see the contrast of light and dark. Darkness represents sin, and light represents righteousness.
A sinful lifestyle must be shed like dirty clothes. When I was younger and played Little League Baseball, I used wander around the field and pick up aluminum cans. I would save them up and sell them, and blow the money on baseball cards. Well, in addition to pop cans being made of aluminum cans, beer cans are made of aluminum as well. I picked up all kinds. I didn’t always have a bag or something to carry them in so I would use my shirt. I would take the bottom of the front of my shirt and pull it up so I could carry the cans in my shirt. Apparently not every beer drinker emptied every can, and I got some beer on my shirt. When I got home, my mom would demand that take the shirt off because of the odor emanating from it. For some reason she didn’t like the combination of sweat and beer.
Likewise, Paul tells us to cast off the works of darkness. Like a sweaty, stinky, old shirt that is thrown immediately into the laundry, we are to take off and throw away a sinful lifestyle.
When it is dark, it doesn’t really matter what we wear, because people can’t see it, but when the darkness is gone, it is going to matter. It is our calling to live a lifestyle worthy of the light even when it is night. That’s what Paul means when he says we are to put on the armor of light.
When the night is over, it is…
III. Time to walk in daylight.
Paul says, “Let us walk properly as in the daytime.” Daytime is wonderful. After the hurricane, I heard many people say, “I’m glad the storm hit in the daytime rather than at night.” There is something that just seems comforting about the daytime. There is something comforting about light. How many of you slept with a lamp or nightlight when you were a kid? How many still do? When it’s dark we run into things and stub our toes. We like the light. When it’s light we can…
A. Walk properly.
Paul is calling the Church in Rome to walk properly. He is calling them to a righteous lifestyle. These are people who were already Christians. Just because someone is a Christian, doesn’t mean they have it all together.
We need to be reminded periodically that we need to live a righteous life. Paul says that our actions should be righteous…
B. Not like the world.
Paul lists six things in verse 13: orgies, drunkenness, sexual immorality, sensuality, quarreling and jealousy. The list covers the range from wrong attitudes to wrong behavior.
Paul is writing to Christians. Are we to believe that these things were going on in the Church at Rome? It’s not likely, but it’s also not impossible. What Paul is saying is that we cannot allow the world to influence our life. If these things were going on, Paul emphatically says, “Stop!” If they weren’t going on, Paul is saying, “Watch out!” Let’s go through a brief rundown on what these things entail.
The first on the list is orgies. What this means in the original language is excessive revelry or partying. It debases people. It is a disregard for our own well-being.
The second is pretty straightforward: drunkenness. We can understand that in our culture. I used to work with a guy who would come to work drunk. Drunkenness causes us to lose our perspective. It causes us to have faulty judgment. One dad of a teen that was in our youth group when were youth leaders was passionate about drunk driving. One time he shared with the group the dangers of drinking and driving. He brought a pair of goggles that messed your vision the way alcohol can. As the kids tried on the goggles they stumbled and fell. We certainly don’t need to have faulty judgment.
The third term is sexual immorality, which is very much prevalent in our culture. Any sexual activity outside of the bonds of marriage, which is one man and one woman, is sexual immorality. It goes deeper than mere acts. Remember the words of Jesus, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” That includes someone at work or on the movie screen. We are to refrain from sexual immorality.
The fourth term is sensuality. This means shamelessness. This is the individual who openly practices sin and brags about it. Why would anyone be proud of open sin? Certainly a Christian wouldn’t be.
The interesting thing here is that in the original language, these first for terms are plural indicating repetitive behavior. Even though that is the indication, we must be careful not to engage in these harmful practices at all. It may only take one time to make an addiction.
The fifth is quarreling. This is petty bickering and arguing. This is when pride gets in the way of reason, and we fight and scuffle about every little point of contention.
The sixth is jealousy. This is envy. This is when we dislike our neighbor because they got a new car, and we won’t be happy until we get a new car.
This comes down to how we spend our time. Are we going to waste our time fighting and bickering or getting drunk or anything else on the list? Or, are we going to spend our time seeking to advance the Kingdom of God? Pastor Warren Wiersbe says, “[We have] no reason to get involved in the sinful pleasure of the world.” We have no reason, because our reason is to share Jesus with the world.
In the last verse of our passage Paul says that it is…
IV. Time to put Jesus in control.
He says, “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now if I’m out mowing the lawn, and I have a wedding to go to later in the day, I am going to have to change my clothes. When I mow the lawn I try to wear skuzzy clothes. Old pants, an old t-shirt and old shoes are the wardrobe of the lawn care time, but when I go to a wedding I put on dress pants and nice shirt and tie. In order to get the good clothes on, I have to take the old clothes off. I can’t put the nice clothes on over the old clothes. It’s impossible to wear both at the same time.
When we “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” we have to shed the sin-soiled garments that we had on.
Our culture is little different from that in which the Roman church existed. The moral standards were very low. The temptations are there. If anything our temptations are greater. We have access to kinds of filth. With hundreds of TV channels beaming garbage into our homes, and millions of internet sites promoting all sorts of decadence, all that temptations is at our fingertips. Now, I’m not saying to throw out the TV or computer, but we must guard ourselves against that junk. Pastor Clarence Bence put it this way, “The solution then and now is a proactive stance. Faith requires a deliberate choice of spiritual wardrobe.”
Our wardrobe will be made known by how we live our lives and spend our time. There are a bunch of studies and surveys out there that indicates how much time we waste doing this or that.
How do we spend our time? Paul tells us in verse 14, “Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” We will spend our time gratifying the flesh or gratifying Christ. There is no other option. It’s not both. It’s either or. We must choose which we will gratify. Will we spend our 86,400 seconds per day gratifying our flesh, or will we spend it gratifying Christ?
Conclusion
The question we must ask ourselves is, “How am I am going to spend by 86,400 seconds each day?” I would like to commit today to spend those 86,400 seconds each day living for Jesus. Will you do that?
The first Sunday of every month we spend time in a joyous celebration of Christ’s suffering for us. Jesus commanded his disciples to do this often. He commanded his disciples to do it in remembrance of him. This is not wasted time. This is not merely cracker and juice. This is a 2,000 years old means of remembering that Christ died for us. It also reminds us that he has not abandoned us on earth. He is coming again. These emblems are of his beaten and broken body and his shed blood that washes away our sins and allows us to put him on and live in righteousness. This is a serious occasion. It’s not somber. We don’t mourn the death of Jesus, but we celebrate his resurrection and the forgiveness of sin.
Read Luke 22:1-20.
Before we take part in this celebration, if there is anything in your heart that you need to turn over to the Lord, do so right now. Let God take control. Let him cleanse.
