Do You Have the Time? Part 1

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You can also subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your programs. Now, here's Pastor Paul today's destined for victory message. Do you have the time? The first part of this series we looked at the fact that money matters. Money matters. And I spent two messages talking about the fact that money matters to God. It's got to matter to us because he made us stewards of his financial resources. Now I want to move on and talk about the fact that time matters.

Time matters. Matters we want to talk not only about how God wants us to manage our money Which we've done. I now want to talk about how God wants us to handle and manage our time Our time There are four basic points that I made as we were talking about the fact that money matters. I Said that the way to be an excellent steward of our financial resources is to do four things that I want you to note to sow generously To shrink debt systematically to save regularly and to spend wisely The reason I'm reviewing those four points is because the exact same points Apply by principle to the management of time We are going to have to learn how to sow it We're going to have to learn how to shrink Obligations that we shouldn't have made in the first place with our time We're going to have to learn how to save time the Bible calls it redeeming the time Buying back some time and then we're going to have to learn to invest or spend our time Wisely, so let's walk through this where I leave off in this message I'll just pick it up not going to rush because we need to learn to be excellent stewards of our time Time matters. Let me talk a little bit about the value of time time is the second most valuable resource you have of All the resources you have time is the second most valuable resource the only resource More valuable than time and technically it's not a resource. It's a gift. God gave you is salvation Salvation is the only thing more important Than time where your stewardship is concerned and the reason by the way that salvation is more important than time is because it Transcends time when I give my life to Jesus when I receive him as my Savior When I acknowledge my need for him, and I trust him that his work on the cross was sufficient to pay my sin Debt and to make me a child of God the moment I do that Time cannot impact my relationship with God if I get saved one moment and Die the next I'm going to spend eternity with the Lord So salvation is so important that the moment I get saved I'm set literally for eternity Whether I live or die Paul said I belong to God So I don't need time I'm gonna be with him whether in this life by having more time or when my time here is up to be absent from the Body is to be present with the Lord But everything else I have Depends on having time Time is more important than money More important than money because if I lose money, but have more time God can give me some more money You got it if I lose My gifting I lose my way, and I'm not using my gifts, right? God can bless me to be used in some other ways I've seen folk who God gave a wonderful voice to but because they abused their lives Before they get saved if you ever heard somebody who used to could sing Come on now think about it. There's some folk in fact. There's some entertainers who used to could sing and they still singing because They don't know that the presence of the Lord has been lifted you Know I'm being facetious It's not the presence of the Lord many of them have abused their voices through drugs or cigarettes or alcohol or whatever it is Just loose living what have you and there's some people and you hear them sing now, and you say what in the world happened?

Some singers the best thing you can do is play their old records Isn't that right When they were in their prime But even if you abuse one set of gifts or talents if you have time There's some other ways. God could use you But you need time to do it So times more important than money Although money is important times more important times more important than gifts and talents Which we'll talk about after we get through with the time section of this stewardship series But gifts and talents and money are not nearly as important as time friend of mine was at the bedside of an extremely wealthy man as He was dying He knew he was dying the doctors had told him you only have days to live and he was bitter and angry And she said I happened to be there with a few folks visiting this man when he in desperation grabbed his doctor and said I will give you everything I've got if You will make me well in That moment of desperation the man realized that all of his multiplied hundreds of millions of dollars meant nothing If he was about to die Time is important Second most valuable gift we have the value of time is seen in one of the basic theories upon which our justice system Was conceived now it doesn't work right, and it doesn't work well anymore But when they conceived our justice system It was based on a premise that valued time and as a result of that We've all come to know little phrases like if you do the crime You Got to do the time Because the justice system was conceived on the premise that the way we can penalize a criminal best is to rob him or her of the free use of Their time this justice system didn't say if you do the crime you're gonna have to pay some money Not as important To people cuz if a criminal made a whole lot of money being a criminal And all you do is say you got to pay that got that right here But the one thing they knew they could do is restrict their free use of time and They built a whole justice system on it Major crimes were originally designed to be paid for by doing major time The system is broken now, and it all depends on who you go in front of what jurisdiction you're in How in the world do you have some folk rotten in jail? Because they slung dope and then you have murderers Get out on probation This is a broken system It's why I don't believe in a lot of what they do in this system because until men's hearts are right and until we decide That God's Word is right, and it's the way to govern so that we can have uniform governing There's a whole lot of these laws and these statutes They try to put in place that I will always be against cuz until people treat folks fairly No, neither you calling it a justice system People say well are you for capital punishment? Well capital punishment isn't the problem the problem is the way people abuse it the? System originally was built so that a capital crime could be punishable by capital punishment But today, you'll never get me to sign off on it Because you got folk Who haven't done anything wrong? Had some false witnesses set up against them and now they're sitting on death row somewhere and Meanwhile guilty folk just riding all up and down the streets That's not even in my message my point is My point is that the very justice system was based on the premise That time is the best way to punish people to restrict their free use of it Therefore how we manage time is critical. It is very important You're listening to destined for victory with pastor Paul Shepherd senior pastor of destiny Christian fellowship in Fremont, California He'll be right back with a second half of today's message but first this reminder if you haven't already be sure to download our free mobile app so that you can listen to destined for victory right In the palm of your hand the app allows you to take notes on the day's message order books and audio messages You can even make a safe and secure donation to the ministry search destined for victory at the App Store and download it today absolutely free Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible known as the Pentateuch But he also wrote a psalm one that warns us that our life span is short here one minute gone the next Here's pastor Paul again with the rest of today's message.

Do you have the time? Now with that foundation laid go with me to Psalm chapter 90 Psalm 90 and Let's look at verses 10 through 12 now This is a psalm of Moses if you're new to your Bible sometimes people assume that all the songs were written by David not true There were several different authors of the Psalms Psalm 90 was authored by Moses Here's what it says in verses 10 through 12 the length of our days is 70 years or 80 if we have the strength Yet their span is but trouble and sorrow for they quickly pass and we fly away Who knows the power of your anger for your raft is as great as the fear that is do you? Look at verse 12 Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom Now Moses who authored this psalm uses generalization simply to point out the brevity of life. He says Generally speaking it looks like folk are living 70 maybe 80 years.

That's all he's doing. He's just looking at lifespans in his day Some folk die a lot younger Some folk die a lot older but generally speaking he said we're looking at 70 80 years on average and He alludes to the fact that the fearsome God when you see him Talking about the power of God's anger and his wrath is as great as the fear that is due him. He's simply noting the fact that we all have to give an account to a fearsome God Now there's a man writing Prior to the cross. He's looking forward to the cross as did everyone in the Old Testament Dispensation that there'll be a day when God's wrath is settled in the person of Christ on the cross But before that day comes he's simply pointing out to his Old Testament audience in particular That we have to give an account to a fearsome God in other words don't take God lightly and Even we who are New Testament Saints God's wrath has been satisfied in Christ, but that doesn't mean you can take God lightly because you got to give an account to God one day and And although we're not paying the penalty for our sins because Christ took that on we will stand before him to be judged for our acts of Righteousness and not everybody's getting the same reward see we all going to heaven, but not everybody gonna get the same reward and I want heaven and a good deal of rewards I Want heaven and some hookups I? Don't know what heavenly hookups are gonna look like but whatever they are I want to be faithful to God in this life So I can be blessed of him and used by him in the life to come so verse 12 says so Lord teach us To number our days are right that we might gain a heart of wisdom teach us Lord how to make our time count by walking in wisdom Teach us to number our days that begs a question how much time do I have? How much time do I have I want to submit to you that there are two answers to the question They will seem to contradict each other, but they're both true write the first answer to the question how much time do I have the first answer is You don't know Write that down.

You don't know or make it personal. I don't know You don't know He said look like folk are making this 70, maybe 80 years, but not everybody does and It's not a one-to-one correlation always between your lifestyle and your length of days Sometimes you're calling Calls you to live a shorter life Look at people whose callings have put them in dangerous situations soldiers law enforcement officers They want to live a long life too, but they're very calling sometimes puts them in the line of fire firefighters for that matter and Various other persons their profession their calling is hazardous Missionaries who are called to very dangerous parts of the world. They love God. They're saved by grace But there are many missionaries who lay down their lives today. I'm not talking about back in Bible days No, no today. There are missionaries dying Simply because they went somewhere to let people know Jesus saves and They ran into a hostility that resulted in the loss of their lives, and it's happening today there are parts of the world today where all you'd have to do is just go and be a vocal Christian and You are subject to lose your life But Jesus told us it would happen. He said they persecuted me.

They're gonna persecute you too That's why you got to rightly divide the word. I know we got a whole lot of candy store theology out here whole lot of people acting like you can just speak it and claim it and possess it and blab it and grab it and You can tell God how many years you're gonna live no no there are many other factors your calling Can shrink your days? Look at people who just fight for justice and the fight for justice Puts them as the target for certain people Martin Luther King jr.. Never saw his 40th birthday Think about it He never saw 40 in his late 30s gun down President Kennedy some of the things he stood for calls people to resent him and caused one man or whatever the Conspiracy theories are y'all get into that. I'm not getting in all that But calls somebody to want to gun him down in the prime of his life And on and on and on so Listen the first answer to the question.

How much time do I have is I don't know? None of us know That's why it pays to be ready, and you who don't even have a dangerous calling you live in a dangerous world Come on somebody you live in a dangerous world You live in a world where somebody can be angry on the freeway They have done you wrong don't even know you, but they out there full of anger and And they have a hair trigger all they need is one wrong thing Thing you accidentally cut them off you weren't listening you and they're singing praises to God Got your praise and worship music on and you turn without the signal and they're coming up on you And they screech some of these folks so mad they got a gun right there in the car Some of you live in neighborhoods that are dangerous There are lots of factors. I know we plead the blood and we're believing God and that's what we got to do We got to trust God for life We got to trust God for safety But you have no guarantees Other than the guarantee you find in Christ, which is to put your hope in things eternal Yeah, that's not me. I'm I'm I'm healthy Do you know healthy folk are dying every day? I? Told you my doctor in 2012 my doctor I visited him in the summer of 2012 and we were talking about my weight loss plan and all that and he was affirming me in past I'm proud of you and what but and stick with this and all that and Two weeks after I walked out of his office young healthy in his 30s thin good-looking Indian, man wife little babies Dead two weeks after I walked out of his office You don't have to be sick to die or know you're sick.

He didn't know he had something that was going to kill him Just two weeks after we shook hands I'm not trying to scare you. I'm trying to sober you You can't afford to take life for granted because Life has many factors many elements to it. I jog every day. You can die jog into the health food store Doesn't mean you shouldn't go It just means that you gotta put your hope in things eternal and You got to pray and you got to trust God for every day of your life.

So that's the first answer I don't know how much time I have Now here's the second answer. It's gonna look like a contradiction, which is I know exactly how much time I have How much time is that? I have 24 hours every day except the last day I live on earth Think about it. I know exactly how much time I have 24 hours this day unless this is the last day of my life So on the one hand, I don't know how much time I have because I don't know when that last day is gonna be But until that last day comes which is the unknown and don't fool yourself God's not gonna reveal it to you I got friends who have super measures of faith. I'm believing God to tell me the last day. I'm gonna live Okay I don't think you're gonna make it but okay Because not only don't we know the day of the hour that the Lord is coming we don't know the day of the hour he's coming for us But I do know until he comes until that last day I know exactly how much time I have He's giving me 24 hours every day There'll only be one exception and that's my last day on earth Managing our resources can sometimes be a difficult challenge If you're struggling in this area or any area of your life today the Destined for Victory ministry team would be happy to pray for you Stop by pastorpaul.net and use the contact us feature to share your request with us That's pastorpaul.net And when you contact us for prayer be sure to ask for your free copy of Pastor Paul's monthly newsletter When you do you'll receive monthly communication from Pastor Paul delivered right to your inbox Well our mission here at Destined for Victory is a simple one We want to take as many people to heaven with us as we can And because we know so many of you share that desire Pastor Paul invites you to help by sending a special gift today Destined for Victory is a listener supported ministry So as God leads please perfectly consider making a generous donation And when you do be sure to request this month's special offer Pastor Paul's booklet Built on a Solid Foundation You know Jesus never told us we could avoid life storms only that with his help we could withstand them In Built on a Solid Foundation Pastor Paul explains the importance of building your life on the word of God And he describes the blessings that come from that kind of life That's the booklet Built on a Solid Foundation Our gift to you today by request for your generous gift to Destined for Victory Call 855-339-5500 to give over the phone Or mail your gift to Destined for Victory post office box 1767 Fremont California 94538 You can also make a safe and secure donation from our website pastorpaul.net And thanks in advance for helping keep Destined for Victory on the air The first thing I want you to know is just as with money we're called to sow generously The same principle applies to the use of your time What does sowing generously look like with my time? Glad you asked It means sowing quality time into what I call the seven habits of highly effective Christians That's tomorrow when Pastor Paul Shepherd shares his message Do You Have the Time? Until then remember he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion In Christ you are Destined for Victory