Session 8 Stewarding Time Big Ideas: • Stewarding Time • I want to focus on stewarding well three main areas that most of us spend most of our time on: work, school, and screens. It’s easy to vastly overestimate what we can do in the short term and vastly underestimate what God can do through a lifetime of faithful stewardship. Stewarding Time Not all of us have money to invest. Yet we all have time, energy, and emotional capital in terms of love, care, and commitment that we can/must invest as good Godly stewards. What do we value? Number my days 1 Chronicles 12:32 of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command; Psalm 90:1-17 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. You turn man to destruction, and say, “Return, O children of men.” For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. You carry them away like a flood; They are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up:In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers. For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; We finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; Yes, establish the work of our hands. James 4:13-17 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin. How do you see and who/what do you serve? Matthew 6:19-24 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. • Do you believe there are two kingdoms at play? You will know who truly believes this by what they place value on and invest in. • If you understand the significance of both Kingdoms, your stewardship will be greatly affected. • I have been given today. What am I doing with my day to budget my time early and then give an account at the end of my day? • God did not create us to live idle and focus only on our desires. When we do this, we show Him we don't understand His larger Kingdom’s purposes for this life. • A good steward will budget their time like we do other things. Ephesians 5:13-17 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” 15 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Screens Video 3:32 Minutes • Social media may seem free, but it is paid for with our time. • Social media may make you seem closer to those far away, but it will take you away from those close. • Oxfords word of the year in 2024 was brain rot. A term once used humorously now backed by real science. Excessive screentime, mindless scrolling, and digital addiction is reshaping our brains. • Examine how you can utilize screens for good or become a distracted consumer. Image Work & School Work was God’s idea, and he even patterned for us a familiar pattern of 6 days of activity followed by a day of rest. Genesis 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The Lord God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to work and keep it. The first human work given was gardening. Genesis 3:17-19 (part of the curse was labored work) Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. 18Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. 19In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” “In nothing has the church so lost Her hold on reality as in Her failure to understand and respect the secular vocation. She has allowed work and religion to become separate departments and is astonished to find that, as a result, the secular work of the world is turned to purely selfish and destructive ends and that the greater part of the world’s intelligent workers have become irreligious, or at least, uninterested in religion. But is it astonishing? How can anyone remain interested in a religion which seems to have no concern with nine-tenths of his life? The Churches approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours and to come to church on Sundays. What the church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.” -Dorothy L. Sayers “Attempts are often made to persuade us that our work lives have little to do with God’s plan and purposes, whereas the God-oriented part of our lives is defined by what we do outside of work, despite the fact that we spend the majority of our waking hours at work in body and mind.” -John Lennox “We Christians say that God is everywhere, and He is Lord of everything but for the majority the honest reality is that our work and marketplaces seem so devoid of God and His purpose. We march off to work valiantly and come home despondently. What is the place and purpose of work? Is there anything sacred about secular work? Is there any meaning in the marketplace? Is our great destiny to simply eat, drink, and leave behind an empty dish? “ -John Lennox How should we view our work? How does God view our work in His overarching creation plan? “Our desire to work, which occupies much of our lives, is a fundamental aspect of how God made us. This mindset allows me to think about my work and its purpose very differently. When I reflect on work being an aspect of being made in the image of God, whose own work is supremely demonstrated in His creation, it gives my work eternal Kingdom purpose. This also means that whatever else the New Creation may hold for us, it won’t mean the cessation of work, any more than it did before the fall-and that again changes my perspective on work.” -Akeel Sachak (Partner and Global Head of Consumer, Rothschild & Co.) Motivation for work? (money, relationships, self-worth, etc) Work as unto the Lord-Worship Genesis 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. The Hebrew term used for work here is avodah. This is the same term used by moses in Exodus 8:1 And the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Let My people go, that they may serve Me. This could be interpreted that the concepts of work and service to God are closely related enough to use the same Hebrew word for both. This same idea is in the New Testament as well. Colossians 3:23-4:1 Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God. 23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. 25 But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven. Ephesians 5:5-8 Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; 6 not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, 7 with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. Work as a command of the Lord 2 Thessalonians 3:7-11 For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; 8 nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, 9 not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us. 10 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. 11 For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. • Will not vs. does not. (unemployment, retirement, disability) Proverbs 21:25-26 The desire of the lazy man kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. 26 He covets greedily all day long, but the righteous gives and does not spare. Proverbs 13:11 Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but he who gathers by labor will increase. Work as Identity? Work as an idol? Work as Evangelism and Discipleship- We will discuss this in our next series. Take Away: • What is your relationship with screens? Do you utilize screens for God’s purposes, or have you become a distracted consumer? • What is your view of work? Do you see any connection to Christ in what you do in your secular work? • How can you steward your time in a way that brings glory to God in both this Kingdom and the next?