Don’t Waste Your Time

Continuing in our “Nothing Wasted” collection of talks, Louie Giglio reminds us of what time and time management have on our walks with God. We can either use every moment to glorify ourselves, or we can use every moment to glorify the name above all names: Jesus.

There's nothing that frustrates us more than people wasting our time, but in reality, we are the biggest offender of wasting our own time.

If you live 75 years, on average, you'll spend:

• 26 years asleep
• 7 years trying to fall asleep
• 11 years watching TV
• 11 years at your job (40 hr work week)
• 136 days getting ready (women), 46 days getting ready (men)
• 5 years online surfing the internet
• 4 years on the phone, that's 23 days a year
• We check our phones every 6.5 minutes
• Teens send 100 texts per day
• 1.5 years in the restroom
• 3 years washing clothes
• 11 hours a day on digital media of some sort

Ephesians 5:15-17 says to make the most of our time, or opportunity.

Kairos is the word for "time" or "opportunity". It means to change directions and make a shift.

How do we so easily waste the one commodity we can't recover?

We waste our time...

1. By not seeing the big picture. We focus on the next thing or the last thing. If we don't create space to think, then we are going to waste our time.
2. By ignoring the essential thing right in front of us. This means we do the hard thing first. Don't look at it too long; just do it.
3. By good distractions. One of the worst uses of time is to do something really well that need not be done at all.
4. By being selfish. Jesus lived a selfless life, as evidenced in John 6:38. It doesn't matter what we think about something; we should be more concerned about what God is saying. We are way too preoccupied with what we think; God is the higher thinker. What God thinks about your life is not subservient to what you think about your life.
5. By buying the lie that we don't have enough of it. We all have time to do what God purposed us to do. Psalm 138:8 says the Lord will fulfill His purpose for our life.
6. By distancing ourselves from Jesus. We learn from Him when we are close. Jesus was the best time manager. Jesus lived 33 years, his ministry was 3 years, and he destroyed the old way of doing things and established the new in 3 days.
7. By confusing visibility with significance. We think that if we don't have a public face, then we don't have an important face in our lives.
8. By settling for a small purpose. You have to stand before Jesus and give account for what you did. Did any of it eternally matter?

The key to time management is purpose.

Ephesians 5:16-17

Don't waste your time, don't be foolish. Instead, understand what the Lord's will is. The Lord's will in Greek means wish, will, or desire. In those kairos moments, understand what the Lord would want to have happen in it.

Purpose is understanding what contribution God wants to make to humanity because we are alive and on the planet.

Big Idea: Don't waste your time by using/investing wisely the set time you have on earth for the one thing that matters most.

Set time - there's a determined number of days we'll be here.

What is the one thing that matters most? To know Jesus, and Jesus knew.

How do I find purpose? Seeing and setting a God-sized vision for your life.

1. Decide now what you want your legacy to be.
2. Ask what are you passionate about.
3. How can you use your life/time to positively affect other people?

God wants Ephesians 3:20 for you. He can do beyond what you can ask or imagine. There is no greater purpose than Christ and His Church.