Making the Most of Your Time
Eph. 5:16
July 23, 2006 FBC, Chester Mike Fogerson, Pastor
Introduction:
A In a magazine article: Based upon an average 71 year old life span.
1 You will spend...
a 23 years sleeping (8 hours a day)
6 years in a car
3 years eating
11 years in leisure activities
2 years getting dressed
17 years working
b And... let’s say you come to church Sunday morning and evening and Wed. nite, an average of 3 hours a wk, you will spend a whopping total of ...
*6 months in church.*
2 Back in 1967, experts predicted that by the turn of the century technology would have taken over so much of the work we do that the average American work week would be only 22 hours long, & that we would work only 27 weeks a year.
a As a result, one of our biggest problems would be in deciding what to do with all our leisure time.
b Well, I don’t know about you, but that prediction certainly missed the mark as far as my life was concerned!
B ...making the most of your time, because the days are evil. Eph 5:16 (NASB)
1 In Scripture, time was a precious gift that was to be treasured (essence of the text in a sentence)
a Believers can honor God by using their time wisely (essence of the sermon in a sentence)
b I pray you’ll treat the time you have left as a precious gift (objective)
2 How are you making the most of your time? (Probing question)
a Let’s look at two truths about making the most of our time. (Transitional sentence)
b Pray
I Your time is precious because...
A Where you spend eternity depends on decisions you make this side of the grave.
1 To the believer, this is the time we’ve seized to embrace Jesus.
a The Holy Spirit has pointed us to the cross, we’ve admitted, believed, committed!
b For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. Luke 9:24 (NASB) Now is the time, no post-mortem evangelism.
2 No one knows this fact more than the devil!
a "It is appointed once for man to die, and then the judgment"
b When we’re young...plenty of time! Old...out of time
B Time is short
1 The Bible assures us that our time is short.
a Remember that my life is but breath ...Job 7:7a (NASB)
aa Behold, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Psalms 39:5 (NASB)
bb Man is like a mere breath; his days are like a passing shadow. Psalms 144:4 (NASB)
b You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. James 4:14b (NASB)
2 The reason gold & diamonds are valuable is the same reason time is valuable.
a Gold/diamonds are in short supply!
b Time is a thousand times more precious than money, but when your time is up, you cannot buy it back.
C We do not know how short it is.
1 Luke 12 tells the story of the man who built his barns bigger to hold more grain only to die when they are completed.
a But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?’ Luke 12:20 (NASB)
b This farmer didn’t realize how short life was.
aa He assumed he had more time, years, "didn’t see it coming"
bb His journey was over!
2 300 years ago, a journey from England to the New World took months, & arrival was between June & August.
a Supplies were watched closely, guarded.
b If you run out of supplies six weeks from your destination, somebody’s going hungry.
c We know we’ve got limited days, but we don’t know exactly how many we have & when they’ll run out...
D Once time is gone, we can’t get it back.
1 There are some things in life we can regain after we’ve lost them.
a Buy them back, work them back, get them back...regain
b Once time is gone, it’s irretrievable
2 (IL) Putting toothpaste back in the tube once it’s squeezed out.
a All the money in the world can’t buy a moment of time back.
b When it’s gone, it’s gone! (Like a word)
Because time is so precious, we must treat it as such (transitional sentence)
II Your time can be treated as precious by...
A Starting to make the most of your time today.
1 They say the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, & the second best time is today.
a I hastened and did not delay to keep Your commandments. Psalms 119:60 (NASB)
b The psalmist understood!
2 If we fail to start treating our time as precious today, we lose still more time.
B Some time is more precious than others.
1 The time you spend with God is your most precious time.
a It’s where you develop intimacy with your Lord, Savior, Redeemer.
aa Time in His Word, prayer, presence
bb Ask for a fresh anointing, outpouring of the power of the Holy Spirit.
b Worship Him in spirit & truth
aa Truth: knowledge, intellect, understanding
bb Spirit: ...that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man Eph 3:16 (NASB) "Inner man"
cc Private & corporate
c Serve Him
aa When you’re gone, what ministry/service are you leaving behind?
bb Nickel & noses are not service! As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. 1 Peter 4:10 (NASB)
2 The time you spend with your family falls immediately behind your time with God.
a Spouses need your attention.
aa God describes the relationship He’s wanting with & for us is the metaphor of marriage "church is bride", "marriage feast of the Lamb."
bb Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her Eph 5:25 (NASB)
cc Total surrender & unconditional love.
dd Marriage works if you work on it.
b Kids need your attention.
aa They need you! Need to know you’re not going anywhere.
bb See you loving your spouse, praying, church, honest, fail.
cc Parents who say, "If my kids want to talk to me, they know my number." Wake up!
dd Not presents, about presence.
Conclusion
A In Scripture, time was a precious gift that was to be treasured (essence of the text in a sentence)
Believers can honor God by using their time wisely (essence of the sermon in a sentence)
1 We’ve looked at two truths about making the most of our time.
a Time is precious because . . .
aa It’s where we decide eternity
bb It’s short
cc We don’t know how short it is.
dd Once times gone, we can’t get it back.
b Time can be treated precious by . . .
aa Starting to make the most of your time starting today.
bb Treating some of your time as more precious than other times.
2 I pray you’ll treat the time you have left as a precious gift (objective)
B How are you making the most of your time? (Probing question)
1 The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.
I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles".
I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital."
He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities."
And that’s when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years."
"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I’m getting to the important part."
"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."
"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away."
"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 73 Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C’mon honey, I’m taking you and the kids to breakfast."
"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids.
Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles."
2 Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land lifted up his right hand to heaven, 6 and swore by Him who lives forever and ever, WHO CREATED HEAVEN AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE EARTH AND THE THINGS IN IT, AND THE SEA AND THE THINGS IN IT, that there will be delay no longer...Rev 10:5-6 (NASB)
3 How are you making the most of your time? (Probing question)
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Respectfully,
Mike Fogerson
