SERIES ON STEWARDSHIP: - TIME STEWARDSHIP: STEWARDING OUR TIME WISELY. (A message to help us realize the importance of ensuring that we make the best use of our limited amount of time in life.) A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE HAENERTSBURG CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN HAENERTSBURG, SOUTH AFRICA 30 June 2013 Ian F. Loughor-Clarke, Pastor

“Do not squander time, for it is the stuff life is made of.” Benjamin Franklin You and I can make more money, but we can definitely not make more time and because of this we should value time way more than money.

If you want to make the most of your life, then you've got to make the most of your time. Ian Loughor-Clarke

The foundation for effectiveness is doing the important things on a daily basis.

T - TREASURE I - INVEST M - MANAGE E - ENJOY

T - TREASURE Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift... That’s why it’s called the “present!” Time is a resource that is nonrenewable and nontransferable. You cannot store it, slow it up, hold it up, divide it up or give it up. You can’t hoard it up or save it for a rainy day–when it’s lost it’s unrecoverable. When you kill time, remember that it has no resurrection. A.W. Tozer

Psalm 90:12 12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Ecclesiastes 3:1 3 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: Ephesians 5:15–17 15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

1. Our time is actually God’s time entrusted to us. Psalm 24:1 (NIV) 1 Of David. A psalm. The earth is the L ORD ’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

I- INVEST 1. Our time cannot be saved, only invested. If I could save time in a bottle, the first thing that I’d like to do, is to save every day ‘till eternity passes away–just to spend them with you. Jim Croce (wrote a song in the 1970’s)

2. Our time should be invested in the important and not the urgent. There are 168 golden hours in each week. The average person will spend about 56 of those hours sleeping, about 24 of those hours in eating and personal hygiene, and about 50 of those hours working or traveling to work. That means there are only about 35 hours a week of “discretionary” time left over. That’s about 5 hours per day. Where are you investing those 5 hours?

A. Our time stewardship should always give God the first place in our lives. Luke 10:38–42 38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” 41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Some manuscripts but few things are needed—or only one

Psalm 27:4 4 One thing I ask of the L ORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the L ORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the L ORD and to seek him in his temple. Exodus 20:8 (NIV) 8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Exodus 20:11 (NIV) 11 For in six days the L ORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the L ORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

B. Our time stewardship should give our wives and children second place. Ephesians 5:22-25 (NIV) Wives and Husbands 22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

Time is the capital that God has given us to invest. People are the stocks, in which we are to invest our time, whether they’re blue chips or penny stocks or even junk bonds. Billy Graham

C. Our time stewardship should afford time for ourselves. 1 Corinthians 6:19 (NIV) 19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

M - MANAGE Time management is a misleading concept. You can’t really manage time. You can’t delay it, speed it up, save it or lose it. No matter what you do time keeps moving forward at the same rate. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves. Stephen Covey (Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)

1. Our time is most often spent on time wasters. On any given day we spend the following: hours sleeping hours doing housework hours eating - 2 hours caring for children - 2 hours caring for other household members - 8 hours working hours on home work or related studies - 2 hours on religious activities hours volunteering hours watching TV - 2 hours exercising - Each of these vary in relationship to men and women

2. Our time should be stewarded wisely. Proverbs 27:1 (NIV) 1 Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

3. Our time should be managed or else others will manage it for us. The most important time you will invest will be in your relationship with God and your family.

E - ENJOY 1. Our time schedule should help remove time robbers.

2. Our time should include happy memories. James 4:13-15 (NIV) 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.”

Philippians 3:13–14 13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.