Rethink: Rethink Your Time, 10/12/14

Sermon 10-12-14 rethink-time  James 4:13-17

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.

Isaiah 40:6-8 [the context is very interesting: we are like grass, but there is one who is coming]

⁶ A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”  “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. ⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. ⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”

Rethink – time

The life span in Africa is like 45

In the US, we are 32^nd in the world in life span.

There is a Limited nature of time

  “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. ⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. ⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall,

2002 ski trip… everything was fine

11pm call on Saturday night about my dad

illness- advancing age

We are struck by the shortness of time

Billy Graham was asked what he was most surprised by in life. He answered, “it’s brevity”. Graham has lived a relatively long life but He still feels the sting of life’s brevity, the shortness of it…

A person with a great deal of money has the luxury of spending it frivolously.  When we have little money, we tend to behave in a much more prudent fashion.  these few days that God gives us are too valuable to he trifled away. More precious than gold they ought to be managed with great intent

From the musical RENT

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?  How about love? [self- others- enemies]

2004 - Tim mcgraw song – live like you were dying - 2004

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'

Even though it is limited, Time is often not appreciated
Are we just going thru the motions of life?
Sleepwalking - Kyle

I have some questions about your life...
Are you paying attention? Aware? Looking? Seeing? Really living?

Auto pilot is so easy to find
a woman wrote……..

I couldn’t wait to be 16 and drive a car

Then  I was dying to finish my high school and start college
Then I was dying to finish college and start working
Then I was dying to marry and have children
Then I was dying for my children to grow old enough so I could go back to work

They I was dying for them to get married

Then I was dying to have grandchildren
then I was dying and suddenly I realized that I forgot to live

Anthony demello says that spirituality is waking up!

What would it mean to choose to make the most of your time?

Wasted time

We waste time when we are not listening.

When we don’t read the directions

When we make bad decisions

When we value the wrong things

The great 19th-century naturalist and Harvard professor Louis Agassiz was once approached by the emissary of a learned society and invited to address its members. Agassiz declined the invitation, saying that lectures of this kind took up too much time that should be devoted to research and writing. The man persisted, saying that the society was prepared to pay handsomely for the lecture.

"That's no inducement to me," Agassiz replied, "I can't afford to waste my time making money."

early Christians were against card playing- and other trivial pursuits

Life is short, there is much good to do

The average life span in Wesley’s England was  37. Wesley was 88

Me visiting Mozambique

How that effects how we use our time

In a lifetime the average American will spend:

Six months sitting at stoplights
Eight months opening junk mail
One year looking for misplaced objects
2 years unsuccessfully returning phone calls
4 years doing housework - 5 years waiting in line - 6 years eating

When I started in ministry, the use of time was legislated

Blue laws

It’s a different world

I talked with someone who was bemoaning the amount of time that they spent driving kids to various practices

Sports for children has changed the landscape of America

We are racked w quilt for not spending enough time w our families –

cats in the cradle syndrome

We are racked with guilt for making our lives revolve around them

Friends, We waste our time when we are wracked with quilt.

If there is something wrong, fix it, and move on

Wasting today, pining over yesterday or tomorrow

Evangel football – Stan H – Jon Ferguson

The question for a Christian, is what is selfish time, and what is well balanced god time

Do Christians ever get to retire?

How much time do we spend on ourselves,  and how much on others?

What does God time look like

1.    An awareness that it is not Yours? Concept of stewardship.

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.

2.   A prayerful leading or acknowledgement of gods direction

3.   An applying his principles/values to our life choices

We have some choices on how we spend our time

Some is regimented – work, sleep

Some is free for us to value

Long term choices vs short term choices

One choice might eliminate the availability of another

How much time do you spend feeling guilty, dealing with regret?

What might you do for or with God?

Volunteering.  Need for volunteers.

Sunday activities have changed the landscape of those available to help with Gods work.

Later today we will have the memorial service for donna Watkins.

Raise in wheaton MO.  Population 600- So active in church and youth group.

It was the happening thing, nothing else to do in wheaton, MO

No reason not to be connected…….. pick a spot

we can be blown by every wind that comes along

we can work to keep up with the jones’s

or we can decide who we are going to be and make the hard choices

time choices for our father

what were you created for

there was a song – it was for such a time as this we were created

what is on the inside. 

How many people do I know who are in their 40s and they are talking about ministry.  I had this calling as a young person, and did nothing with it.

You know what is there.  Follow it.

make the most of your time

we can find the joy.

what a treat

I have a dear friend who told me this story and I think about it often.
He was at the bedside of his grandfather who was dying.  He was holding his grandfather's hand and his grandfather looked into his eyes and said, "life- what a treat."

Life has its ups and downs, its joys and concerns. 

And yet, through it all, runs a river of joy. 

Life is amazing.  It is good.  It is surely a treat. 

I thank God everyday for the gift of life and for the joy of knowing each of you.

Lets pray.