Time Management. or Time Godagement
GE 6:22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
This morning I want to talk about the most dangerous weapon in the world that is forged against the church and the Kingdom of God.
Do you know that the misuse of this weapon by Christians is a primary cause of wars – world poverty – people losing their salvation and almost all of the difficulties we see on the news and read about in the Newspapers.
This weapon which has caused so much devastation and destruction in the world is not aids – religion – or humanism but quite simply the misuse of time.
How Christians use their time has a radical effect on the world at large.
In the book of Acts we read about the disciples as being those men who have turned the world upside down.
The world was turned upside down because these men used their time well.
Noah lived Genesis chapter 9: 29 Altogether, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.
Jesus it is estimated lived about 33 years.
What is it about these two men who had such a huge disparity in their lives in terms of length.
The difference is they never wasted their time.
Jesus maximized his 33 years and Noah lived his 950 well.
Many people though use their time as if there was no tomorrow.
Sometimes lives are wasted because of no fault of the individual –
I found the following story on the internet.
Mother kept girls locked away from the world for seven years
Bojan Pancevski in Vienna
Three girls who were imprisoned by their mother in a house of indescribable filth for seven years may never recover from the ordeal, experts said last night.
The girls were shut away from the outside world, existing in almost complete darkness, playing only with mice and communicating in their own language.
When they were discovered, their home in a smart, upper middle-class suburb had no running water and was filled with waste and excrement a metre high. The floor was corroded by mice urine.
Through no fault of their own these girls were robbed of eight precious years of their lives.
But compounding that loss is the years and years that will be lost in these girls establishing normal patterns in their lives.
What an incredible waste of time in these girls lives.
But we too – can wasste our years as well.
As the old pop song used to begin – “wasted days and wasted nights.”
This morning I want to consider the lives of Noah and Jesus and to look for vital clues in relation to time management.
The first thing I would like to point out is that in relation to God’s call on you life you have to Get started.
Procrastination is one of the greatest causes of failure in the world to day.
When Noah was given a huge task to build an Ark – He got to it.
He might have said to himself I couldn’t build an ark even if I had hundreds of years to live!!
Well in the end Noah had 950 years which is a lot longer than the mere 33 years that Jesus had.
But God knew best and gave Noah the time and resources he needed.
GE 6:15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark--you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."
GE 6:22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
What a massive task God set Noah.
He had a massive task in building a ship that big and organizing everything need for it – but god who set the task also provided the resource – time and materials.
Noahs job was to begin.
Here is my key verse:-
GE 6:22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
What a huge task –
: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.
GE 6:22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
Noah didn’t hesitate – He just got to the task
If we have a God task to do we need to identify our cause of procrastination:-
I found some really good advice on time management to deal with procrastination but let’s look how Jesus gets straight to it when the call comes to ministry:-
The following survey is from the internet:- Ronald Koteskey is Member Care Consultant New Hope International Ministries Since the time of Jesus, those who work for him have found themselves very busy and have needed to manage their time. As revealed in the book of Mark, Jesus himself seemed to be in control of his time. In the dark of early morning after a busy evening Jesus rose early, left the house and went off by himself to pray. When his disciples found him and told him that everyone was looking for him, he said, “Let’s go somewhere else…” (Mark 1:35-38). He said no to some people to make time for others.
Later the crowds surrounded Jesus and his disciples and kept them so busy that they were not even able to eat. When Jesus’ family heard about the tremendous time pressure on him, they came to take charge, but they could not reach him either, so they sent someone in to call him out. That time he stayed where he was teaching even when they told him that his family was there for him (Mark 3:29 -33). He did not stop teaching just because his family came. Still later after his disciples had been called, instructed, commissioned, sent out on an evangelistic crusade, and returned, there were so many people around that they again did not have time to eat. Again Jesus asked them to come to a quiet place with him and get some rest. They went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place (Mark 6:7-32). All these examples demonstrate that Jesus took control of his time.
Procrastination was not going to happen. To this day Christian’s find themselves besieged by people with problems. If these Christian’s are not able to take control of their time, they will soon find themselves burning out, thus being of little use for the work of the kingdom of God .
· ( People have different reasons for their procrastination, so different strategies may be needed to counteract these different causes. For example, a person who procrastinates because of feeling overwhelmed would need a different strategy from one who does so because of getting a “rush” from hurrying around just to get the job done on time. A person who procrastinates because of perfectionistic tendencies would need a different strategy from one who does so to avoid responsibility. The following strategies may help you get started.
The second time management point is:
Choose your task - Don’t let the task choose you.
If you look at the illustrations of Jesus that we have shared here you will notice that Jesus chooses what he will do from a number of presenting options.
You will remember how we said Later the crowds surrounded Jesus and his disciples and kept them so busy that they were not even able to eat. When Jesus’ family heard about the tremendous time pressure on him, they came to take charge, but they could not reach him either, so they sent someone in to call him out. That time he stayed where he was teaching even when they told him that his family was there for him (Mark 3:29 -33). He did not stop teaching just because his family came. Still later after his disciples had been called, instructed, commissioned, sent out on an evangelistic crusade, and returned, there were so many people around that they again did not have time to eat. Again Jesus asked them to come to a quiet place with him and get some rest. They went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place (Mark 6:7-32). All these examples demonstrate that Jesus took control of his time.
When people tell me they are too busy I want to take hold of the word too –
“Too” means excessive –
Not the correct amount –
For example if you said your neighbours were being too noisy you would be saying they were making excessive noise.
If someone was too centered on themselves you would be saying that you find them boring and a bit of a pain.
If you are too busy you are saying you have not chosen the right tasks to do in your life.
Laziness is a problem – if you don’t do enough you have poor time management – the book of Proverbs has much to say about that.
PR 19:15 Laziness brings on deep sleep,
and the shiftless man goes hungry.
PR 12:24 Diligent hands will rule,
but laziness ends in slave labor.
Here observe the word diligent.
Diligence is not the frenetically busy person.
Diligence is not doing everything.
Diligence is not even doing everything you have been asked to do.
Diligence is doing the things that God requires you to do.
Titus 3. 8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.
There must have been days when Noah was tempted to devote himself to doing something other than building an Ark.
There may even have been days when he had sharpened up on his boatbuilding skills when he could have thought”man I could use these woodworking skills to set up a wood working corporation that could make millions.”
Thirdly remember that time is a limited resource – None of us – not even Noah lives forever.
Sermon Central – botrrowed from a sermon -
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.
Jesus once said.
LK 6:46 "Why do you call me, `Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. 49 But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete."
Even Noah who lived in a time of longevity knew that he had to get to the tasks God had given him to do.
Story on waste.
A man in Louisville was convicted of five counts of robbery and kidnapping. The Jury recommended a sentence of five thousand years. Judge Edmond Karem ruled that such a long sentence was excessive and that the jury had gone a bit far in their recommendation. So, he substantially reduced the sentence – from five thousand years to only one thousand years. (Of course, with time off for good behaviour, that man will be back on the streets in about six hundred years.)
My point is that man has taken steps to waste his whole life.
But any life that is lived outside of the will of God is wasted.
Many successes in life are actually failures.
Robert Schuller, Pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, once said he chose to fail so he could succeed. He said, “I chose to fail at golf, because I qwanted to succeed as a Father.”
We need to choose carefully how we spend our time.
Can I review for you three time management principles that we have gleaned from the scriptures this morning:-
1. The first is that in relation to God’s call on you life you have to Get started.
2. The second time management point is:
Choose your task - Don’t let the task choose you.
3. Thirdly remember that time is a limited resource – None of us – not even Noah lives forever.
