The Blueprint - 1 - The Design For Our Time

Today we are going to be starting a new series called “the blueprint” we are going to be looking at how God has designed different aspects of our lives to work towards his kingdom.

Over the next four weeks we are going to look at the design for our talents, our money, our love and today we are going to start by looking at the design for our time.

So today we are going to be thinking about time, and how we can use our time wisely in order to get the most out of our lives. To get us started we are going to play a game. What you need to do is try and guess how long it takes for each of these things to be made.

On your whiteboard I want you to draw a bottle, large enough to fill most of the board. Once you have done that I want you to fill your bottle with your activities of a typical day. So some of your bottle will be filled with sleeping, some with school, a bit with homework, a bit with playing games and so on.

Now rub out half of the contents of your bottle, down the middle. Now fill this half with the activities that you would like to fill your day with.

The amount of time in our day is limited, no matter how hard we try there will always be 24 hours in a day, and seven days in a week. So whenever we decide to do something this prevents us from doing something else.

Like all of our limited resources God wants us to use our time wisely so that we can make the best use of every second of the limited time that we are given on Earth.

With this in hind we are told to be careful how we use our time in Ephesians 5 : 15 - 20. Here we see that there is a clear difference between a wise and foolish way to use our time.

What examples can we see here of a wise way to use our time?

The writer of this letter to the church in Ephesus, Paul was trying to encourage the people to focus on things that would draw them closer to God and to build up other people and the church.

He warns the people to avoid wasting their time on things that will not build them up. In the passage it talks about drunkenness but can you think of any other examples?

So how can we live a live using our time wisely. As we have seen we can focus on God, and try to avoid wasting our time on things that will not build us up. We can also use our time wisely through serving other people, and the church as a whole.

In Ephesians 2 : 10 it says “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, for which God prepared in advance for us to do”. God has designed each one of us to play an active part in his kingdom. The best place to start serving is here in church.

Can you think of all of the different ways that people volunteer their time to serve this church?

Just think how different church would be without these people choosing to serve us. There would be no one welcoming you in, no one to prepare your drinks and donuts no one, no one to lead the music in the service and no one to teach you.

There are loads of teams which you can get involved with in the church, giving you the opportunity to serve alongside other people on a Sunday morning. These include helping with the younger children in childrens church, the welcome and refreshment teams, parking and the multimedia team.

As Christians we are generous with our time not because we have to, or because we are being pressured into doing something. Instead we are generous with our time because:

• We want to help God’s kingdom to thrive.
• We understand that service is part of God’s design for our time.
• God promises to reward us for the work he does for us.

We see an example of this in 2 Corinthians 10 : 6 - 11. We see the generosity mentioned here extends beyond just our time, but to generosity in all aspects of our life including our money and stuff.

Have a think about how you serve other people. It might be your friends or family, or it might be groups you are part of, or teams you already serve on at church. Then talk in groups of two or three about what you do and what you would like to start doing

If you do not already serve in some way at church, spend some time this week thinking about what you could do to play an active part in God’s kingdom. If you want to know more about what you can do have a chat with me afterwards or speak to anyone in the youth team.

Let’s close in prayer:

Lord God,

We thank you that you have a blueprint for and have a design for our time.

Please help us to know how we can serve you, and give us the confidence to take an active part in your kingdom.

Give us the dedication and commitment to be able to use our time wisely and make the most of every second that you have given us.

Keep us safe this week until we meet again.

Amen