How to Be a Human Being - Make the Most of Your Time

Ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day to get everything done? The older I get, the more it feels that way. It feels like there’s not enough time in my life to get the things done that I hope to do. Projects that I’ve been wanting to get around to but there never seems to be enough time. Places I want to travel. People I want to spend time with. Books I want to read—books I want to write. Concerts I want to see, albums I want to record. You probably have those kinds of things, too. The big dreams of youth that get swallowed up by the demands of life.

There’s not enough time. Not enough money. Then, as we get older—not enough energy. The world keeps going crazy. Life gets more and more insane all the time.

We end up like that sweet old couple from the Pixar movie “Up.” They kept saving for their dream life but it never came. Every time the piggy bank got full, they needed a new set of tires, or something until it was too late.

Life is so busy with work and school and family and obligations. There’s just never enough time to do anything else.

And the grind gets to us. It’s depressing. We lay in bed thinking about how hopeless everything seems. Pointless. Meaningless. 

At 56, I look back on my life and I realize that I’ve crossed the halfway point. There’s more in the rear view mirror than on the road in front of me. I think about all the things I’d still like to accomplish, and I hear the clock ticking. I need to work harder. Stop wasting time. Be more efficient. It all goes by so fast.

We’re in a series called “How to Be a Human Being,” and today we’re talking about how to make the most out of our lives. How to get the most done. How to use the time and resources that God gives us so that they go as far as possible.

Like most things God tells us, the answer is surprising. Counter-intuitive.

God says you’ll get more done in 6 days than you will in 7 if you dedicate one of those days to Him. God says you’ll go further on 90% of what He gives you if you give 10% back to Him. God says you’ll get more done in your life, if you take a day each week to rest and heal. You’ll approach each week with a healthier sense of who you are and what this life is all about, if you take a day to reorient yourself around His Word, His promises, His commands—if you get together with the local church and remember the hope you have in Jesus. It’s the same with every aspect of our life, we give it to Jesus, ask Him to bless it, and we get far more in return. Even time.

Remember the Sabbath Today we’re looking at the third Commandment. “Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.” 

It’s usually considered to be the last command on the first tablet of the law—the ones that are focused on our relationship with God. There are almost as many words used for this commandment as there are in the rest of them combined. It must be pretty important.

Exodus 20:8-11

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. On that day no one in your household may do any work. This includes you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, your livestock, and any foreigners living among you. For in six days the Lord made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and everything in them; but on the seventh day he rested. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.”

Notice the Sabbath is rooted in creation. It’s the way God made the world. It’s built into the fabric of reality. If you ignore this command, you’re working against the way things are. It’s as much a part of creation as the law of gravity. If you break this law, ignore the Sabbath, you’re likely to fall down and get hurt.

It says to remember the sabbath, which means it was probably something they were already familiar with.

Sabbath means rest. To stop working. Slow down, take a break, take a deep breath, relax.

It’s a command, but notice what it’s commanding us to do. It seems like the kind of thing we’d be more than happy to obey. It’s actually a gift. “Hey, listen up! I command you to take a day off! You shall take a vacation day every week!” 

But we’re really good at turning blessings into burdens, aren’t we. 

The sabbath has been the most abused of all the commandments. It’s the one the religious leaders tried to trap Jesus with over and over. “Oh, no! He healed someone on the Sabbath! He must be a terrible person. He should probably be put to death.” They had rules about how many steps you could take on the Sabbath, how many things you could carry, no writing or planting or watering—they had all kinds of rules.

Jesus told them they had it all wrong. The sabbath was like recess when you were in grade school. You had to do it, but it wasn’t supposed to be a drag. It was supposed to be the fun part of the day.

But we turn blessings into burdens. 

The commandments were given to the people of God right after they were rescued from Egypt. They were about to go on a forty year journey through the wilderness. God was going to feed them every day with this miracle bread called manna. It just showed up on the ground every day for forty years. All they had to do was scoop it up into baskets and they had all the food they needed for that day. It was only good for one day, though, it always went bad by the next day. But here’s the thing—on Friday there was always enough to gather two day’s supply. Saturday was the Sabbath, there was no manna on Saturday. And the manna they gathered on Friday would always last for two days.

They had a miraculous picture of God providing for them, showing His presence and His law every day and every week. There was no gathering manna on Saturday but there was always enough for the Sabbath.

It was a day of rest, it was a gift, but that doesn’t mean God wasn’t serious about it. It’s in the same list as do not steal, do not kill, do not commit adultery. Anyone caught found guilty of breaking the Sabbath was subject to the death penalty. God wasn’t kidding around about this thing. He really wanted His people to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

They were to be the kind of people who stopped what they were doing every week and remember that they were to have no other Gods. They were to come together and pray, gather around God’s Word, His promises. Gather in His name. Be with their family. Remember who God is and who they are. They were supposed to stop and rest and keep the Sabbath holy. God is the creator, the provider. They were to show that they trusted Him with their lives. By resting in Him.

God wants to give His people all the good things. That’s why he created people—so He’d have someone to bestow His blessings on. He wants to bless us. He wants us to stop our endless pursuits of pleasure and money and accomplishments one day a week to remember that all good things come from Him, to remember that we’re His people. To set one day apart from the other days and dedicate it back to Him. 

He promises that if we do, we’ll get more done in six days than we would have in seven.

It’s like a lot of Jesus things, they’re counter-intuitive. The last shall be first. The meek will win. God says to test Him in these things—pay your tithe, ten percent of your income, and see if the remaining 90% doesn’t go further than 100% would have if you kept it for yourself.

Jesus said if you want to find your life, you have to lose it in Him. If you become a servant of Christ, then you’ll be free. Give your life to Him and you’ll get everything life truly has to offer. Keep it for yourself and it will be empty. 

Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man, as a gift. Man wasn’t made for the sabbath, like it was to be some kind of drudgery. 

They killed Jesus for saying things like that. They killed Him on a Friday. He laid in the tomb on the Sabbath, on Saturday. But then He rose from the dead on Sunday. 

On Sunday, Jesus started a new creation. That’s why Christians have always said that Jesus didn’t raise from the dead on the first day of the week. He rose from the dead on the eighth day. A new day. They called it “The Lord’s Day.” It was a new Sabbath.

The church didn’t keep the old Sabbath any longer. I know some people think we should still keep Saturday as the Sabbath but that’s not what the early Christians did. They started gathering on The Lord’s Day. Sunday. God tells us that we’re not to be the kind of people who argue about feast days and Sabbath, but we are to be the church. The gathered.

In Hebrews chapter ten where it’s talking about the glorious new access we have to worship God because of the sacrifice Jesus made for us, it says starting at verse 23,

“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Hebrews 10:23

Part of the love and good works that we’re to encourage each other in is gathering on the Lord’s Day—which is Sunday—to keep it holy. To rest in the promises of Jesus. To remind each other of the hope we have in Him.

That means if you keep Sunday for yourself because you think you need to rest and have some “me time” it will not go well for you. God doesn’t bless disobedience. God doesn’t bless sin.

That’s why I asked Chris to sing “Easy Like A Sunday Morning” before the message today. The way he sang it, it was like an ode to “I worship myself on Sunday morning.” Sunday morning is all about me. It’s for me. It’s my day. I set that day aside for myself. I sleep in. Enjoy a little brunch. Work in my yard. Catch up on paperwork. Get a jump start on the week. Stay ahead of the competition. 

But we don’t get ahead. There never seems to be enough time. All the days fade together, the weeks fade together, and life feels more empty and hollow every year.

This is why God gave us the gift of the Sabbath. Built it right into creation. On the seventh day God rested, so He wants His people to rest. Remember the sabbath to keep it holy. Separate from the other days. Remember that we’re God’s people and He wants to bless us.

Hebrews is saying the same thing: “Don’t get in the habit of neglecting to come together around the promises of Jesus. Encourage each other to be the church.”

The church is the gathering of God’s people in Christ. You can’t be the church at home alone on Sunday morning. You can’t be gathered by yourself.

But what about online services? Sure, you can gather in Christ through an online service—for a time. But understand that you are not really alone. You are gathering with other Christians around the Word of God. You are gathering with other members of the Body of Christ when you gather online. The church isn’t limited by time or space. I completely understand that some of us have to stay home right now because of this Coronavirus thing. But when we have the opportunity to gather in time and space again, which I hope will be sooner rather than later for all of us, the ability to gather together in the same room and the same time, to hear the comforting words of Jesus—that’s the reality that these online services are only a glimpse of. 

These are hard times for the church. It’s more difficult to gather together as the people of God in Christ than it has been in any of our lifetimes. The devil is working hard to destroy the church. All sickness is demonic, but this COVID thing is extra demonic. It’s pure evil. It’s not only sickness for the body but it’s sickness for the soul. It spreads fear and division. It sets us against each other. It makes us afraid of each other. It makes people afraid to go to church. Hesitant to come together as the church to worship God. It makes it more difficult than ever to love people. It makes us fight with each other about masks and statistics and the proper ways to respond with politics and guidelines. It has us at each other’s throats. Bringing out the worst in people. Even Christian people. Maybe especially Christian people. As if we needed another excuse to fall into these kinds of sins.

All these things make trying to grow a healthy church pretty much the most frustrating thing in the world. We’re still in the middle of this COVID nightmare so I don’t know the way forward any better than anyone else but I know this—it’s going to involve being the church. The local church. Which means the people gathering together around the promises of Jesus. It’s going to involve coming together to worship God. It’s going to mean remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy.

Ever since I first came to faith in Jesus, I wanted to be in church. If I’m not here, I miss it. It feels like something is missing. I don’t understand Christians who don’t want to be part of a church. I love it. I was 14 years old, walking through ice and snow to get to church. I wouldn’t miss it. I didn’t grow up in church, but once Jesus found me, I wanted to be part of it.

There never seems to be enough time. Or enough money. Or enough energy. The world keeps going crazy. Life gets more and more insane all the time.

If you want to accomplish something, you have to write it down. Make goals. Break those goals into plans and smaller goals. God says this is one of the top ten most important things for living a life that matters—that has purpose. That has hope. This is one of the top ten most important things for how to be a human being: remember the sabbath to keep it holy.

Do you have “go to church” on your weekly calendar? If anyone in your house ever has to ask if you’re going to church this week—that should be a wake up call. If you’re a Christian, this should be a goal. Write it down. I mean, God already wrote it down for you, put it in the Bible and everything. This is one of the big ten, this is how to be a human being the way God designed us in creation. We need to re-calibrate ourselves around God’s Word by coming together as the gathered, as the church. We need to pull our families together around the promises of Jesus every week, or we’ll get sucked into all the madness and confusion and hopelessness of the world around us.

What we do here is essential. God says you’ll get more done in 6 days than you will in 7 if you dedicate one of those days to Him. God says you’ll get more done in your life, if you take a day each week to rest and heal. You’ll approach each week with a healthier sense of who you are and what this life is all about, if you take a day to reorient yourself around His Word, His promises, His commands—if you get together with the local church and remember the hope we have in Jesus. This is what church is, it’s resting in Jesus.

Yes, it’s a command. Yes, God is serious about it. But it’s a command to come to Jesus for rest. It’s a command that should sound really sweet to our ears. 

This is what remembering the Sabbath sounds like now: Jesus said,

“Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

That’s a command. It’s also the Gospel. AMEN.

Prayer: 

We gather here to remember what You have done for us,

To ask you to bless our time, our days, our weeks, our lives,

To take our plans and our hopes and dreams,

And make them Yours. Align us to Your will. Help us to keep today and every day holy.

AMEN