Download Timely Generosity - Northwest Community Church

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Northwest Community Evangelical Free Church
(January 18, 2015)
Dave Smith
But the commodity of time? Not so much.
Sermon manuscript
Like money, time can be wasted, spent, or invested. But there is
no “time bank” that will give you a return of one second of life.
Sermon Series: The Generous Life
Timely Generosity
Money is a valuable commodity, but it is a renewable resource
that can be replenished through work.
Study #3
In 2011 Justin Timberlake starred in a movie that revolved
around the theme of time. The movie was titled “In Time” and it was
set in the year 2169 when the universal currency isn’t money, it’s time.
(Mark 5, Luke 10, Ephesians 5)
Introduction: Life’s most valuable commodity…
And now, from our favorite philosopher, the man whose works
include Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, Yertle the Turtle, and
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Dr Seuss, we have this:
How did it get so late so soon?
It’s night before it’s afternoon.
December is here before it’s June.
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon?
Indeed, time does fly.
In our culture, money is important. You’ve got to have money to
buy stuff. Without money, you don’t have food, shelter, or clothing. It’s
tough to get along without money.
But if you are without money, you can look for a job, work, and
get money. And, while it’s never a good thing to waste money, if you do
happen to waste it, you can always go out and get more.
Some people have accumulated so much money that they
literally have more than they need. People who have more money than
they need can generously give to others and still have enough for their
own needs.
I haven’t seen the movie, but it’s got a provocative plotline.
In the future, everybody is genetically programmed to live to
age 25. Then, you have one more year to live UNLESS you can buy or
steal time from someone else.
In this movie, those who are poor are those who don’t have
much time left. The rich, who have stolen the poor’s time, have hoarded
time to keep living for centuries.
The movie is intriguing because it revolves around the central
idea that we all would like to have more time.
Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and you all have exactly 60
seconds in every minute, 60 minutes in every hour, and 24 hours in
every day.
Steve Jobs was one of those people who had more than enough
money. In a 1985 interview, he said, “My favorite things in life don’t cost
any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is
time.”1
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The ancient Greeks symbolized time/opportunity in their mythology by a man
who had wings on his feet (he doesn’t remain with you very long), a long lock of
hair growing out of his forehead (grab him when he is with you!), and a bald spot
on the back of his head (once gone he is GONE!).
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Now, in a series of January messages focusing on the beauty of
generosity, it is inevitable that we would pay attention to things
financial. We did last Sunday and we’ll consider next Sunday some of
Jesus’ wisdom when it comes to generosity with money.
But how we use our time - waste it or spend it or invest it - is
also a matter of great importance. In fact, it is at least as important as
money because time is such a much more valuable commodity than
money.
Unlike money, we can’t go out and buy more time. The clock
never backs up. Nobody has more time than they need.
So, when we are being generous with our time we are truly
being generous. Among the most precious gifts we can give to anyone
is the gift of our time. And where and toward whom we are generous
with our time says volumes about what is truly important to us.
Knowing all of that, we’re not surprised that Jesus was careful
in His use of time. In eternity, the Son of God wasn’t bound by time at
all. When He was born in Bethlehem, though, He became subject to
chronology, just like you and I are.
So, while we never see Him frantically rushing around, He also
never wasted time.
He used His time wisely, investing it in doing what the Father
had for Him to do AND He used time lovingly, generously giving His
time to those around Him.
Jesus Generously Gave Time to People in Need (Mark 5:21-43)
Jesus Had Time for a Little Girl’s Acute Crisis
One day, when He and His disciples had just returned to the
seaside town of Capernaum in their boat, He was met by a crowd of
people who converged on Him. Out of the crowd emerged a man
named Jairus whose daughter was sick at home, at the point of death.
Jairus begged Jesus to go with him to his home, lay His hands
on his daughter, and heal her.
Mark doesn’t tell us what the little girl’s medical condition was,
but Jairus somehow knew that his little girl didn’t have much time or
hope. He was pinning all of his hopes on Jesus.
Jairus was a synagogue official, a powerful man. He fell at Jesus’
feet and begged Him to heal his daughter. Jesus immediately agreed to
help.
Notice how generous Jesus was with His time. Whatever He had
been doing was now put on the back burner to give time to a suffering
little girl whose father was beside himself with panic.
As Mark tells the story, the crowd that had met Him at the
beach followed as they walked to Jairus’ home. You can see them
walking quickly. Time is of the essence.
Then, the story takes an interesting turn when a woman with a
long-standing sickness reached through the crowd and touched Jesus’
cloak, hoping to be healed.
Jesus Had Time for an Older Woman’s Chronic Suffering
The instant she touched His garment she was healed of her
twelve years long ailment. And just as immediately, Jesus sensed that
power had gone out from Him to heal.
He stopped. He looked around at the crowd and asked who had
touched Him. Not who had just rubbed up against Him in the bustle of
the procession to Jairus’ home. Who touched Him with desperate faith?
The woman came forward. She admitted that she had touched
Him. Then He generously gave of His time to interact with her.
Mark tells us that she proceeded to tell Him [33] the whole
truth.
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I’m betting that this telling took time. To tell the misery of a
twelve years long affliction can’t be hurried, and Jesus was the
consummate listener.
He listened as she spoke about the endless doctor’s visits, the
wasting of her life’s savings. She told Jesus all of it.
And then, after she had told Him “the whole truth” Jesus
commended her for her faith.
It is touching that Jesus gave so generously of His time to this
older woman who had suffered with a chronic ailment for so long as
well as to Jairus’ little daughter whose suffering was recent and acute.
Jesus wasn’t stingy with His time at all, and He wants us, His
people to be generous with our, too.
Jesus Cheers Us On to Timely Generosity (Luke 10)
A Defining Talk about Eternal Life Leads to...
On one occasion, Jesus was talking with a Jewish scribe who
[Luke 10:25] put Him to the test with a question. He asked, “Teacher,
what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
When Jesus turned the question back on the scribe, the scribe’s
answer raised the bar really high.
Of course, He gave this older woman so much time that by the
time He turned His attention back to Jairus to heal his daughter, his
daughter had died.
He said you have to [27] “love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with
all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”
But that allowed Jesus to perform the even greater miracle of
raising the girl from the dead.
By his answer the scribe betrayed that he was putting the
weight of His trust in himself, not God. He was trusting in his own
actions, not God’s grace, for eternal life.
The point I want to highlight this morning from Jesus’ dealing
these two needy people is that He generously gave of His time.
He did it throughout the three years of His public ministry,
investing time with his disciples, with antagonistic Pharisees and
Sadducees, with wayward tax-collectors and prostitutes, and even with
large, hungry crowds.
He wasn’t stingy with His time.
I thought about people who are generous with their time a
couple of Wednesday evenings ago when a few men, women, and
children gave a couple of hours of their time to pack grocery bags that
would be distributed to people who don’t have enough food to eat.
I thought about timely generosity this week when I sat down
for breakfast with Craig Cihak, who serves San Antonio’s international
student population, along with a few folks from Northwest, primarily
by giving time to be friends, in Jesus’ Name.
We know this because of his follow-up question to Jesus. He’s
looking for a loophole when he asks, [29] “And who is my neighbor?”
Jesus’ answer to THAT question erased the hope of “doing
something” to inherit eternal life by raising the bar impossibly high
with a story we know as “The Parable of the Good Samaritan.”2
...the Parable of the Good Samaritan
Suffering ignored by religious leaders
The story is about a man - no doubt a Jewish man - who was
traveling the long and winding, dangerous road from Jerusalem to
Jericho.
In the ears of a first century Jew, the term “Good Samaritan” would have been an
oxymoron along the lines of deafening silence or pretty ugly. To the ancient Jew,
there was no such thing as a good Samaritan.
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While traveling, this man was attacked by thugs who stripped
him, beat him, robbed him, and then went away leaving him half dead
on the side of the road.
It was extremely unlikely that a Samaritan would have stopped
to render aid to a Jew - but in Jesus’ story, the Samaritan stopped to
help.
In Jesus’ story, a Jewish priest was traveling the same road, saw
the beaten man lying in a pool of blood - and passed by on the other
side.
We don’t know if he was going TO Jericho or TO Jerusalem,
whether he was going up or down. We don’t know what moved the
priest and the Levite to NOT help. We do know that it was the
Samaritan’s compassion that overcame whatever distaste he might
have had for the Jews.
We would have hoped that a priest, of all people, would have
stopped to render aid. But he didn’t, with no reason given for the
priest’s shameful neglect of the man’s need.
Not long afterwards, a Levite passed by on the same road. He
saw the same injured man in the ditch and did the same thing the
priest had done.
The Levite, who served the priest, would have been less likely
(and less expected) to have rendered aid than the priest. And this
Levite lived down to our expectations, walking right on by without
lifting a finger to help.
The bruised, broken, and bloody man was still lying on the side
of the road when a third man, a Samaritan, walked by on the same
Jericho-to-Jerusalem road.
Suffering alleviated by a Samaritan
I’m not going to take time this morning to make much of a point
about the cultural differences between the Samaritans and the Jews,
which were huge. Nor will I develop the theme of the undeniable
hatred of each group for the other, which was well-known.3
He provided wound care. He used oil to soothe the man’s pain
and wine to disinfect the open cuts. After bandaging him, the Samaritan
didn’t just leave him there on the side of the road.
He loaded the injured man on to his own donkey (which would
have meant that he himself walked!) and hauled him to the nearest
inn/hostel, of which there were a few on this road. But the story
doesn’t end with him dropping the man off at the inn, either.
He had to leave the wounded man at the inn, but promised he
would come back to pay for any expenses incurred in his absence. And
he left money with the innkeeper to take care of him until he returned.
Talk about going above and beyond to help - and remember
that this is a Samaritan helping a Jew he’d never even met.
A compelling reason to NOT help - TIME!
I’ve given thought, this week and at other times, as to why the
priest and the Levite didn’t stop to help.
Of all the reasons they might have given for NOT stopping to
help, the issue of money has never rung true to me.
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It is well documented that Jews and Samaritans of the first century hated each
other. And if anything, there was more hatred coming from the Jewish side. The
Jews viewed the Samaritans as an unclean, mongrel race of Jew and heathen,
formed when the Assyrians overran the northern part of Israel in the 8 th century BC
and intermarried with Jews. So despised were the Samaritans that a Jew journeying
from Galilee to Judea would travel around the land of Samaria to avoid defiling
himself by stepping on Samaritan soil. It’s an ugly picture of racial prejudice.
I’ve heard some people say that their unwillingness to give
money was the reason they didn’t stop to help, but I’m not convinced.
They knew Scripture’s commendation to be generous with money
toward the needy.
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Neither does the idea that they were afraid of contracting
uncleanness by cleaning out a wound make much sense. They both
knew that they would not be guilty of uncleanness by rendering aid to
a suffering man.
But it’s also in the Bible to tell you and me, who have placed our
hope for eternal life in God’s grace and not in our works, to [Luke
10:37] “go and do the same.”
We are called to be good Samaritans.
However, I can easily believe that they didn’t want to invest
time to help. Hours to clean the man up. Hours of slowed down travel
to the inn. Time to stop off and make arrangements for his care. Time
to take care of the man when he stopped back by.
We seen this when people volunteer to lead a Bible study to
residents in an assisted living facility. We see it when others volunteer
time to serve people through our Bread and Water ministry.
Things to do and people to see and places to go is not a mindset
unique to 2015. While other parts of the world are less schedule driven
than our own, interruptions to a schedule aren’t welcomed anywhere.
Week in and week out, men and women give of their time to
prepare and then teach Sunday School lessons to children or offer their
time to love on babies in the church nursery.
The Good Samaritan spent both money and time helping the
man who had been beaten and robbed.
These are all Good Samaritan-ish kinds of things. Jesus calls us
to be generous with our resources of money AND of time.
I’d guess that most of us are impressed with the Samaritan’s
willingness to spend money to help the stranded Jew. He was generous
with his money. He generously gave him his donkey to ride and
generously gave medical assistance.
It is safe to say that the early church took Jesus’ example and
instruction to heart. They were outrageously generous with both.
But we are all probably more impressed that the man was so
generous with his time.
When Peter and John saw a man on the steps of the Temple in
Jerusalem begging, they honestly told him that they didn’t have silver
or gold. But they did give this needy man their undivided attention.
They didn’t ignore him as if he was invisible. They gave him their time.
The most frequent answer I get to the question, “How are you?”
is, “Busy.” “Exhausted.” “Honking at my tail lights.” We are chronically
running out of time. We need more time. We’ve lost time. If there’s
anything we need more of, it’s time.
The Good Samaritan gave away his precious time. And Jesus
told His story in such a way that we couldn’t miss that generosity with
money + generosity with time = mercy.
This story has been in our Bibles for two thousand years
because Jesus wanted to show a Jewish scribe that if you are trying to
get to heaven by good works, you’ll have to always show perfect love to
everyone - raising the bar impossibly high.
Jesus’ Followers Gave Generously of Their Time
And, by the power of God Peter gave the man a far better gift
than money. He told him, [Acts 3:6] “In the name of Jesus Christ the
Nazarene - walk!”
Later, once the church was up and running, seven men
generously gave of their time to head up the food service ministry to
widows and others in Jerusalem.
The leaders in the church at Antioch spent time praying and
fasting. At the end of the season of waiting on the Lord they received
direction from the Holy Spirit that they should send out Barnabas and
Saul on the first ever missionary journey.
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That resulted in those two leaving Antioch to give two to three
years of their lives to spreading the gospel of Jesus in Asia Minor.
And the rest of the book of Acts records story after story of men
and women who spread the word about Jesus, helped people in need,
served, and invested for eternity by being generous with their time.
In fact, service of any kind will involve time. All service involves
generosity with time.
So we’re not surprised to find the Apostle Paul referring to the
use of time as a key component of Christian discipleship. Here is what
he had to say in his letter to the church at Ephesus.
The Apostle Paul, on Time (Ephesians 5:15-16)
[Ephesians 5:15] Therefore be careful how you walk, not as
unwise men but as wise, [16] making the most of your time, because
the days are evil.
The Days are Evil
The evil of Paul’s day
While “evil” can be a term used of natural disasters like storms
and fire and disease, it is more often used to describe moral evil. That is
certainly what Paul has in mind here.
And the first century was, indeed, evil.4 There was rampant
sexual immorality, idolatry, and injustice. Abuse of power raged
through the Roman and Greek world of Paul’s day.
When he wrote “the days are evil” he was accurately
describing the times in which he lived. But the phrase could just as
easily describe 2015. Our days are evil, too.
The evil of our own day
There are the international evils of terrorism and slavery.
There are notoriously evil regimes, and the widespread persecution of
Christians - and much, much more.
Closer to home, there is the tragic evil of abortion, the sex
trade, the decay of the family and of marriage, violent crime, abuses of
power, substance abuse - and more.
Mark Twain remarked once, “Mankind was created a little lower
than the angels, and he has been getting a little lower ever since.”
So, Paul’s comment on the times is timeless - “the days (“days”
being a term of time) are evil” - and we need to respond in a timely
fashion. He tells us, that since the days are evil, we are to “make the
most of [our] time.”5
What a strong and provocative exhortation. It’s provocative
because Paul could have used either of two words to communicate the
idea of “time.” He could have used the Greek word “kronos.”
Making the Most of Our Time
Time, as chronology
Kronos is time, plain and simple. It is the Greek word from
which we derive our English words “chronometer” and “chronology.”
Kronos refers to the relentless ticking of the clock. (Or, for Paul, the
relentless movement of the shadow on the sundial.).
Had Paul used that word, I might be ending up today urging you
to declutter your desk, become more efficient at time management, and
work smarter, not harder.
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There are several different Greek words Paul could have used to describe moral
evil. The one he chose is the most severe.
Paul does NOT mean here to call us to good time management. Even as scholarly
a work as Arndt and Gingrich’s Greek Lexicon remarks, “this phrase has nothing
to do with the concept of ‘gaining time’ through time management, etc…”
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But Paul didn’t use that word here. (whew!) He used another
Greek word for time that conveys a very different idea. It is the word
“kairos.”
Time, as opportunity
Kairos means “opportunity.” When we say that something
happens “at just the right time” we are speaking of kairos. When
Solomon, writing in Ecclesiastes, said, [3:1] There is a time6 for
everything under the sun, he was talking about kairos.7
Paul says that because the days are evil, we are to make the
best possible use of the timely opportunities that come our way to live
for Jesus. To be more specific, we are to redeem these opportunities.
Time: “Redeem” it
Normally, the New Testament uses the word “redeem” to talk
about our eternal salvation. We have been redeemed by the precious
blood of Christ, bought back from the market place of sin.8
But here the thought is that opportunities that come our way
are to be redeemed. Opportunities sit there, lifeless and inert. They are
just waiting for us to redeem them for God’s purposes. They are open
doors that will allow us to press Jesus into our world and to serve
people in His Name.
So, Ephesians 5:16 is not Paul urging us to squeeze extra
activity into precious minutes by an efficient use of our smart phones
(although that’s not a bad idea). He is calling us to be Christian
opportunists.
In fact, the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses “kairos” in that section.
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[Matt. 26:14] Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief
priests [15] and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?”
And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him. [16] From then on he began
looking for a good opportunity (kairos) to betray Jesus. (See also 1 Cor. 16:12)
8 Greek word “exagorazo” means, “to buy back” and in other passages is used of
the salvation Jesus won for us. He redeemed us from sin’s penalty. See Romans 3,
Galatians 3, 4.
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Conclusion:
When the time comes to think about time, biblically, a couple of
lines of thought come together.
One line reminds us that the invaluable commodity of time is a
strategic resource that we can generously use to serve needy people in
Jesus’ Name.
Timely service
Be a Good Samaritan.
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Serve in a crisis pregnancy center.
Give of your time to help your neighbor.
Serve children, youth, or adults at church.
Donate minutes to listen to a friend’s struggle over a cup of coffee.
Donate hours to help a friend in need.
Donate days - or more - to serve people in Jesus’ Name crossculturally.
Paul wrote to the Galatians, [6:10] while we have opportunity,
let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the
household of the faith.9
We hear urgency in those words and the urgency is real. Who
knows if the opportunities that are present now will remain? Who
knows if the doors that are now open to serve will be open tomorrow?
Here’s God’s invitation to be on the lookout for places to give
generously of your time.
Another line tells us that as timely events pop up in our lives,
we should opportunistically leverage them for Jesus’ sake.
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We can also remember the counsel of James, the half brother of Jesus, who warns
us that our lives are a vapor and we [4:14] don’t know what [our lives] will be like
tomorrow. Who knows if the opportunities we are presented with today will be
with us tomorrow?
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Timely opportunism
When it comes to Christian Opportunism we are to adopt the
mindset of the Apostle Paul as he spent time in jail.
Paul desperately wanted to take the Gospel all over the Roman
Empire. And he actually did a lot of traveling, too, and did take the
Gospel to many far-flung locations.
But he was sometimes thrown into prison for serving Jesus.
And, when that happened, rather than complain about the sour lemon
he had been served, he squeezed lemonade out of his jail time and
evangelized the Roman guards who were chained to him! (Philippians
1:12-14)
Do you currently find yourself stuck in a situation you would
never have chosen? Life’s not perfect for anybody, so at some level, I’m
certain that we are all facing something that we would not have chosen.
It can be tempting to believe that the time you are spending in
that hardship is a “time out” from timely generosity. Paul’s behavior in
prison suggests otherwise.
Your hardship may involve a challenge on the home front or the
health front. You may have a fractured friendship or a contentious
boss. Or it could be any of a dozen other difficulties.
Exercise some sanctified imagination, some Holy Spirit inspired
creativity and redeem the time you spend in your trial.
They are genuine hardships AND they are opportunities. Your
hardship is a setting in which you can shine for Jesus, just like Paul did
in a Roman jail.
God tells us that we can turn every second that finds us facing
hard times to His purposes. We can leverage a season of pain for Jesus.
We can use the hours of frustration to eternity’s advantage.
Paul did it in prison. You and I can do it in whatever jail we’re
in, as well.
Of all the earthly artifacts we know and depend on, it is perhaps
hardest to imagine a clock in heaven.
Will there ever be a time in eternity when we will say, “I don’t
have time for that.”? No! Heaven will consist of infinite and eternal
opportunities to do all the wonderful, God-honoring things we will ever
want or need to do.
But now, time is our most valuable commodity. We can’t store
up time like we can store money. The clock ticks on. And Jesus calls it
“mercy” when we give of our time to serve needy people in His Name.
[1 Corinthians 15:58] Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing
that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.