Stewardship month, Jan 7th Stewardship of time

Ephesians 5:15-21
If I were to give you $525600 what would you do with it? If I were to give you that each year what would you do? How would you spend it? How would you invest it? It is a large amount of money and really probably unmanageable in our thinking so let’s make it manageable. What if I were to give you $1440 a day everyday for the rest of your life?
One stipulation: you have to spend it all each day there are no leftovers, no saving it for the future. It is either spent today or lost. You choose each day how you will spend it, but you must spend it all. Would you tithe? It would be easy to give 144 a day if you knew every day you were going to get 1440. If you did that you would have 1296 left to spend on anything you wanted.
Now what if I gave you another stipulation for the money? To sleep or eat you have to pay me a dollar a minute. So as an average person you probably sleep and eat for about 480 minutes a day so that would leave you with $816 a day to spend. That’s a lot. Since you like work I’ll let you work, but it will cost you as well a dollar a minute. Which means you will probably spend 550 dollars a day to work. You still have $266 a day to live on. Could you do it? That is still more than 70k a year on a five day work week. That is still after you have tithed 144 a day. How cool is that? If you were to consider the amount left over for everyday of the year it is 97k+. Think you could make it then?
525600 is the amount of minutes you will have to invest this year. You are given 1440 minutes a day. So how do you plan on spending them this year? Could you tithe them by investing in your relationship with God? Even if you were to have 4+hours left over each day after sleeping and eating for 8 and working for 9 hours a day tithing just over 2 hours a day?
What is the value of time? Consider that we waste it, kill it, use it, spend it, wish it would speed up and slow down. We look back and wonder where it went and we look ahead hoping it will arrive.
Make the most of your time: Buy up all that is anywhere to be bought and do not allow a suitable moment to pass by unheeded but make it your own. Do you sense the urgency? Time is important and is not meant to be killed, or wasted. It is meant to be used for the purposes of making the most of it.
If you had to buy time would there be any difference in how you spend it? Would the days of our lives be used more wisely? What if you had to pay in advance $60 an hour for the time allotted to you? Would you waste it? The answer should be obvious.
So how do you plan on using your 525600 minutes this year? Make it manageable how do you plan on spending your 1440 minutes today? How about tomorrow?
How you use your time speaks about your life in Christ! It tells us where you are in relationship to Him. Do you use it wisely?
Paul says walk carefully!
There is purpose, direction and intent to life. Life is not aimless, nor is it a series of frenzied activities followed by down time. It is the steady progress toward the goal. How you invest the 1440 minutes given to you each day should be based upon some established goal. But if you are like most people it is an unspoken, probably not clearly defined goal that you may be embarrassed to actually share if you were to make it clear. Most of us have shown and expressed by how we spend our time what is most important to us. The goal may be unspoken and not clear, but it drives us. It is the collection of stuff for the hope of a moment to relax and enjoy that stuff. We spend our time for the purpose of pleasure, whether now or in the future. We live for the moments of enjoyment of our stuff and our time. Is it wise?
As an average American you will spend nearly 20 years of your life working. The amount of time you spend on your job will amount to 20 years. 23 years will be spent sleeping. 9 years will be spent on TV and other amusements. 7.5 years spent dressing and personal care including exercise. 6 years will be spent eating and 6 more traveling. You will spend 5 years of your life waiting in lines at the bank, stores, theaters, sporting events, the post office, etc. You will spend 1 year searching for lost items like keys, the TV remote and your glasses, eight months opening junk mail, six months waiting at stoplights, and 6 months in worship and praying if you are an average American. If you are like most Christians you will spend between 1 and 2 years in worship/praying/ spiritual life. This is in an average of about 80 years of life.
Where is our greatest investment? Pleasure activities account for more time than spiritual activities. But you don’t understand I don’t have the time to give an hour a day to God stuff let alone 2 hours. It’s a lie folks, we are all given the same amount of time each day. The question is not the amount it is where we are choosing to invest it! What is most important in your life will get your best time.
Be careful how you walk not as unwise, but as wise making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
When Christians speak of discerning the will of the Lord they usually mean major decisions like who will I marry or what will be my career choice. This is not what the text is about. The text is more concerned about God’s intent for the way we live every day, about what is pleasing to him. Perhaps we would not have so much trouble in finding God’s will for important decisions if we were more accustomed to discerning his will throughout life, making our lives conform to the pattern Christ has given us.
What is God’s will? Your salvation! Your Sanctification! Godly relationships! A thankful attitude!

What are we going to do with the 525600 minutes of the year as a church?
God’s voice: Concerted prayer effort. Sat. 10 pm crew what happened, what will it take for us to do it again? Altar prayer life.
Purpose: Unity in the church. Growth in spirit, numbers, passion, life changing results, outreach opportunities, each of us sharing God’s love with others in a real way, service a priority to those who need it, kids, youth, mens, womens, café, Sunday school, small groups, cindy ronny, kurt, Andrew, nursery, summer series creatives, the opportunities are endless.
Make the most of your time.
So how will you invest your time this year?
1440 minutes a day, 10,080 minutes a week, 43,200 minutes a month, 525,600 minutes this year. How will it be invested?
“Therefore, be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”