Your Stewardship of Time is a Window Into Your Relationship With God

Sermon delivered on Sunday, October 11, 2009 at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church, Lewis Center, OH. Due to technical difficulties, no audio version of this sermon is available.

Lectionary texts: Job 23:1-9, 16-17; Psalm 22:1-15; Hebrews 4:12-16; Mark 10:17-31.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

What is the Human Condition?

Good morning, St. Andrew’s! Today we continue our series of sermons on stewardship. You recall that we define stewardship as involving more than just our care of money. God has created humans to be stewards of his creation and this means we must be stewards of all his gifts, not just his material blessings. Today I want to focus on our stewardship of time because it can give us keen insight into the state of our relationship with the Living God.

Have you ever felt like Job or the psalmist in today’s lessons? Even the most devout among us have had these moments of desperation, haven’t we? Right now in the Maney household we are dealing with health and infirmity issues of various family members, and it is heartbreaking to watch. We’re still dealing with vocational issues and job loss, and it seems that my prayer list for folks here in church grows each week. I expect that I am not alone, either. Many of you have serious issues with which you are dealing and so we can relate to both Job and the psalmist, can’t we?

But did you notice the wonderful note of optimism and deep faith that runs through both readings? Despite the severe tests and struggles over which the writers lament, there is a deeper confidence in God and his providence. Job speaks of the fact that although God is almighty and ultimately unknowable by humans, he trusts God to hear him, reason out his struggles with him, and acquit him. Likewise, the psalmist expresses a deep trust in God to deliver him despite his severe troubles because God knows him so intimately and has always been with him, even before he was born. Would you like to have this kind of deep faith that sustains you during life’s most difficult times? You can if you are a wise steward of time.

How so, you ask? Just this. We do not develop this kind of trust and faith in God if we only have a casual relationship with him. The kind of trust and faith exemplified in this morning’s readings is a product of a deep and abiding faith in God, the kind that can only develop over time and by virtue of having an intimate relationship with God, and that takes time and intentionality, just like any relationship does.

We see a negative example of this in today’s Gospel lesson. Here is a rich man who approaches Jesus with some imprudent language. “Good teacher,” he says, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus’ response may seem a bit abrupt to us, but he is simply reminding the young man to consider carefully what he is calling Jesus. Does he really think Jesus is God? If so, is the man ready to do what it takes to really be a follower of Jesus? This kind of language, of course, betrays a casualness the young man has in his relationship with God. In addressing Jesus as “good,” the young man gives evidence that he has not thought through the implications of who God really is and what it means to address or follow him.

Moreover, in asking the question of Jesus, the young man seems to believe that eternal life is something that he can earn by doing good works. He doesn’t seem to understand that eternal life is a free gift given us by the sheer grace of God. Consequently, it is not unreasonable for us to believe that this young man spent a good deal of his time trying to perform good works so he could be in good standing before God. His stewardship of his time was driven by what he believed to be important in life, just as ours is.

Despite all this, Jesus sees that the young man is sincere in his questioning and responds to him in love. He did this by telling the rich young man that he must give up that to which he has given his ultimate loyalty—his wealth. You see, Jesus loved the man enough to accept him just as he was. But he loved him more than that because Jesus invited the man to enter into a transforming relationship with him so that the man could become all that God created him to be. Mark tells us that Jesus’ answer shocked the man and he went away grieving. The man was not willing to put his whole hope and trust in Jesus. Instead, he trusted in his wealth, not God, and as we all know, wealth cannot give us life or raise us from the dead. Only God can do that.

In this story, then, we can again infer that the rich man was not being a wise steward of his time. He was apparently satisfied to pursue good works because he felt they would earn him a place in God’s kingdom, or what Mark here calls “eternal life.” Furthermore, he apparently spent a good deal of his time pursuing wealth, or at least managing it, because he could not come to give his ultimate trust to Jesus. And so we can see this man’s priorities based on how he likely used his time.

Unlike Jesus, who spent much time in prayer and dedicated his whole life to doing the will of his Father, as today’s Epistle lesson reminds us, this rich man apparently did not spend his time wisely to deepen his relationship with God so that he knew all that God called him to do and be. Instead, he apparently spent his time pursuing superficial and temporary things. Good things, perhaps, but temporary things, and so he robbed himself of a life-giving relationship with the Source and Author of all life. It is a grievous thing to behold and none of us should find any kind of satisfaction in a story like this, at least when we consider the rich man’s perspective. Unlike Job and the psalmist from today’s lessons, it is not unreasonable to think that when life became very tough for this rich man, he would not have the spiritual resources he needed to help him withstand the severe trials that inevitably come our way. He had not spent enough time in pursuing the One Thing necessary for the living of our days (and eternity).

Where is God’s Grace?

But that is not what God wants for us. He wants each of us to pursue him as madly as he pursues us. He wants each of us to give our lives to him and love him as much as he loves us. But to do that, we must be wise stewards of our time and use it to develop a deep and intimate relationship with our Lord. That will not happen unless we give God first priority of our time. What does that look like? It requires that we spend some time each day reading the Bible in a systematic way so that we can better understand God’s will for his people and creation. It means that we learn to pray constantly to God and spend time listening to him so that we know his will for our individual lives. It means that we get connected with other faithful Christians in small groups so that they can be God’s presence to us in our faith journey and we can be God’s presence to them. It means that we come to church every Sunday to worship God and give him thanks for all that he has given us, especially in the death, resurrection, and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. All of this takes time. Your time.

But, you say, I have a job to which I must attend (hopefully), and/or a family to raise. I have a gazillion other things to do and they all demand my time. Fair enough. But who do you think has blessed you with all these things? We are not the owners of our gifts; rather, we are the stewards of them, and we must seek constantly to be stewards of God’s blessings in ways that are pleasing to him because after all, we and our gifts and resources are God’s. When we start to really understand this, we can begin to think carefully about how we use our time because we will all have to give an accounting of it one day (see, e.g., the two parables in Matthew 25:1-30).

Moreover, as we begin to prioritize our time and use it to develop our relationship with God, we will find that we are better able to hear his voice and feel his sustaining presence during life’s most difficult moments. As the writer of Hebrews reminds us today, we can approach the throne of grace with boldness because we have a great High Priest in Jesus who knows exactly what it is like to have human weaknesses. Because Christ is fully human and fully God, we can have confidence that he will be merciful and we will receive grace to help us in our time of need, not unlike Paul found when he pleaded to the Lord to take the thorn from his side (2 Corinthians 12:9). This knowledge and this faith does not come without effort and intentionality, and that will only happen if we are wise stewards and prioritize our time to be open to God’s grace so that he will help us grow in our relationship with him. Then like Job and the psalmist, we will have the needed resources to help us when we need it the most.

Where is the Application?

How is your stewardship of time? What does your use of time say about your relationship with God? If you see that you are continuing to grow in grace and faith, then I encourage you to keep on doing what you are doing and share it with others so that you can help us! If you are struggling with prioritizing your time, I would offer you two suggestions. First, make an intentional effort to start your day and end your day with the Lord. When you get up in the morning, make it a point to spend some time with Jesus in prayer and Bible reading. We can all find an extra 15 minutes each morning to do that. Ask the Lord what he wants you to do today and then take some time to listen and read Scripture. Look and listen for answers as you do.

When you go to bed at night, review the day in light of your morning prayers. Did you accomplish what you asked for in the morning? If so, give thanks and ask God to watch over you and yours as you sleep. If you did not accomplish what you asked for, seek to find out why. Are you spending too much time on some things and not enough on others? Do you need the support of other faithful Christians? Whatever it is, ask God to help you overcome the difficulties you are experiencing and then expect him to help you.

Second, as you go about your day, try to do those things that bring you closer to Jesus and avoid those things that cause you separation. Resolve to ask the Lord for help throughout your day. Make it a point to talk to him on the fly and maybe memorize some Scripture verses to help you get through difficult periods of time in your day (like when the priest goes a littler longer in his sermon than you would like). Don’t get ahead of yourself. Take it one day at a time. Doing so will help you begin to pray without ceasing as Paul encourages us to do (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Summary

How will you spend your time? The choice is yours. Will you spend each day in pursuit of things that are temporary and which cannot give life or will you make it a priority to pursue the Source and Author of all life? Remember, he took on our flesh, died for us and was raised to life again, thereby giving us our one and only hope and chance to live with him forever. He has given us his Holy Spirit to help us in our weaknesses and allow us to give him thanks during the good times of our lives. He has promised never to leave or abandon us and we can always have confidence when we approach his throne for help. It is a throne of grace and mercy, offered to us freely because he loves us. All we have to do is respond to this Good News, in part by being good stewards of our time, so that he can transform us to be the creatures he created us to be. That’s good news, folks, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.