Redeeming Your Time and Money

Story of my father and the best sermon I ever heard.

Proverbs 6:6-11

6Go to the ant, O sluggard;
    consider her ways, and be wise.
⁷ Without having any chief,
    officer, or ruler,
⁸ she prepares her bread in summer
    and gathers her food in harvest.
⁹ How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
    When will you arise from your sleep?
¹⁰ A little sleep, a little slumber,
    a little folding of the hands to rest,
¹¹ and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
    and want like an armed man.

re·deem

compensate for the faults or bad aspects of (something).

• do something that compensates for poor past performance or behavior.
• atone or make amends for (error or evil).

gain or regain possession of (something) in exchange for payment.

Redeem Your Time

365 Days this year

24 hours a day

60 minutes in each hour

With 60 seconds in each minute

Which equals 31,536,000 seconds

And while that seems overwhelming it is such a responsibility…

Here is a breakdown of the average human life expectancy…

25,915 days (71 years)

A sobering number is how much time we spend staring at some screen be it a smartphone, tablet, laptop or TV 41%

You spend 29.7% of your life sitting down

Climbed Mount Everest 4.5 times

Run the circumference of the world 4.9 times

Laugh 481,760 times

But at the end of your days you are accountable for your days.  We will stand before a holy God and give account on how we lived our days out.  The bible says it like this…

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. —Colossians 3:23-24

So, what are you doing with your time?

Are you working?

I like the 10% rule.  Focus the 10% and God redeems the 100%.

100% of your time is the Lord’s but a dedicated portion (10%) is exclusively His.

You Give him the ten and he redeems the 90.

Let’s say that you have roughly 100 hours after sleep and things so ten percent would be ten hours.  So, let’s say two hours on Sunday gather together cause the Lord says don’t forsake gathering together as some of you are in the habit and to do it more and more as the day approaches. 

And then two hours focused on another group.  Smaller community groups.

Monday nights at Al-anon or Grief Share or Wednesday nights or early on Sunday mornings. 

Something that is helping to disciple you.  Giving you accountability.  Community.

So that is 4.  Let’s say thirty minutes a day bible, memorization, worship prayer.

Adds another 3 hours so that now we are at seven hours a week dedicated to things of God.

And then throw in a conference, helping at Dnow weekend, Hope Serves, cleaning the church.

And then the other 90% is redeemed. 

Working hard.  With all of your heart as working to the Lord and not for human masters.

Not being slothful. 

Watching the Saints game yes but maybe not watching every game known to mankind for the entire weekend.  Shopping yes but maybe not stopping at every single store on Martin Luther King every day of the week ladies. Social media yes but maybe not twitter, snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Hulu, Netflix Spotify, and whatever  other fy is out there or will be invented in the next two days is out there every day all day.  You are WASTING YOUR TIME.

A redeemed time.  A regained time.

Redeem Your Money

Oh, and this is where you quit listening right.  Yep talk about my time but don’t talk about my money because I don’t have any and I am living from bill collector to bill collector and that is the problem because 100% of it is the Lord’s and you were not meant to live from bill collector to bill collector if it is His we must talk about it.

I like the 10% tithing rule and crazy enough so does God.

Focus the 10% and God redeems the 100%.

100% of your money is the Lord’s but a dedicated portion (10%) is exclusively His.

Not a dollar in the first of the month offering.  Not 4.2 %.  Not when you think about it percent.

You give him the ten dollars and he redeems the 90 dollars.

But it’s not like a magic genie right.  Whooo money. It is just giving what is already his.

And then you are a better steward of the 90 percent. Granted if you are giving to the Lord his ten percent and His church you might not eat out as much, buy less things, but it focuses your ninety percent. 

Sometimes we don’t get because we don’t have.  Sometimes we can’t do something that month because we have given to the Lord our 10% like clockwork and then we paid all our bills and we are gonna sit at home on a Friday night cause that is where we are.  Because now you are stewarding what He has given you.  And don’t think for one moment he will give you any more if you can’t handle what you have. 

What are you giving into the local church? 

Oh, what the Lord could do if the people of God gave in east Houma.

The change that we want to see in east Houma will take prayer and fasting and work and time but it will also take money and some of that is to come from within this congregation of believers here at Hope Community Church.  Put your money where your mouth is

I’m just being honest with you.  We feel like this entire property is ours that will take money. 

A redeemed money. 

A tithed money.

A stewarded money.

I can’t every remember a moment in my life where I didn’t tithe. 

Where I didn’t give the ten percent that says nothing about me I was just forced to, so I did.

Oh, I know I don’t have an enormously generous heart but every month like clock work I write out a check to Hope Community.  We do that as well here at Hope Community we look at what we take in then give over ten percent to missions that you see on the wall outside.  Ten percent.  And every other church that I have been a part of for all of my days since I can remember (it’s the Lord anyways) But sometime the Lord will go for even more and I wrestle with this and I try to never tell Ted because he is overtly generous.  For example, at Passion this week they took a two dollar offering to help get the Word of God into North Korea and I’m moved so I happen to have seven dollars cash on me so I give and I’m like yeah I did that just privately and then I see my husband take the Christmas money that we got from my parents because they are overly generous and God has blessed them because of that and give it. 

It is just who He is and who they are.

So I’m sitting in El Salvador in a prayer tower in the summer of 2015 we are adopting 4 kids we know their names and the price to do that has quadrupled and we are saving at every corner of our lives, hanging out at home.

And we meet these missionaries that are gonna go to the Tonga and tell a people group that have never heard of the name of Jesus about Him and they need so much money to go and I am praying and the Lord as loud as day put a certain number in my heart.

And I’m sure that it is not the Lord, so I go over Ted to ask him.  And he says sure.

So, I make this concentrated walk back to our dorm to get our card and ok God whatever.

And so, in October Ted loses his job from North American.

And goes to work for Hope Community Church free of charge.

And we just feel like that is the plan of God.

And so, we just walk in it.

There was no Christmas that year. 

And things get worse instead of better and the bills are coming in.

But we own our house that we just bought in east Houma. So, the bills aren’t that tremendous.

And things are bad.  Spiritually we are getting attacked.  Financially we are just like wow.

Still tithing off my salary.And my friend calls and offers to do a Valentine’s for our children.

And we just plug that money into our adoption.

And we are just like God you are gonna have to provide.So, the Philippines call us and say we are ready for you to come get your kids.  And so, we are getting ready to buy tickets out of what we don’t have.  And my friend calls.  And the Lord had spoken to her heart that her and her husband were to give on our behalf to go get our kids.  And she asked how much that was gonna be.  And the day before we left to go she walks into this building and hands us a ten-thousand-dollar check.  We had written a check for one and God wrote a check for ten. 

Cause He is like that.  He’s generous.  A redeemed time.  A redeemed money.  It’s your 2018.