Sermon Tone Analysis

ME: ORIENTATION: FIND COMMON GROUND WITH THE AUDIENCE

This series is about a single question that will clarify your best option for 90 percent of the decisions you make in life.

We call it Ask It: The question that answers just about everything.

1.

A question that has the potential to foolproof your relationships, marriage, finances, calendar, pace, and health.

It reduces complexity.

2. The reason we are going to spend six weeks is that I would like to convince you to make this a lifelong habit.

It will save you money, time, tears, and regret.

3.

If you aren’t a Jesus follower, this is optional.

If you are a Christian, however, this question should be a staple: What’s the wise thing to do?

4. We fleshed it out a bit: In light of my past experience, current circumstances, and future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?

5.

Your homework last week was to: Ask it!

For the next two weeks, we are going to apply this question to two specific areas.

Next week, make sure . . .

your teenagers are on the front row.

WE: IDENTIFICATION (MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU STRUGGLE)

Today, we are going to ask this question related to our time.

Job 14:5

5 A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.

We can overeat, over spend, overachieve, but we can’t over live.

· You can make more money and new friends, but not time.

You can count your money and count your friends, but you can’t count your time

Job actually believed that, and other Old Testament writers especially believed, that God sort of set a time limit on everybody's life.

Now you may or may not believe that, but here's what we all know for sure.

Your time's running out, right?

I mean, somebody turned the hour glass over.

The hour's glass, the week's glass, the year's glass over.

And our time is running out.

We all have a limited amount of time.

Which means, we can overeat, we can overspend, we can overachieve.

But you can't over-live, right?

More important than knowing what time it is is knowing what to do with your time.

It really doesn’t matter what time it is if you aren’t using your time wisely.

Let’s begin with four things we all know about time, but choose to ignore.

A. Four things we all know about time, but choose to ignore and will one day wish we hadn’t.

B. I need to remind you of something we learned last week: a person who knows what he ought to do and chooses not to do it to his own detriment is a FOOL.

Just thought I would cheer you up before we get started.

Four insights that help us determine how to use time wisely .

But four quick observations about time that underscore the importance of asking this question as it relates to your time.

Now here's the thing.

If you're not a Christian or you're not a religious person or again, maybe you're here based on a blind date.

If your not religious, this is still very good information.

In truth you don’t have to be a Christian to believe in the importance of wisdom.

If you are a Christian then you must begin to as the question

What is the wisest thing for me to do?

But if you are a Christian, okay, if you are a Jesus follower, if you really believe that God somehow has something to do with your life and you consider God your Heavenly father, if it's personal for you, then this is mandatory.

Because here's what Christians believe, Christians believe that every good and perfect thing comes from the Father, and Christians believe that our time, our opportunity is a stewardship.

That everything comes from God, everything belongs to God, and we manage it, and one of the things that you've been given the opportunity to manage and to handle is your time, which is... Which equals to your life.

Your time, is your life.

GOD: ILLUMINATION (THE GOAL IS TO RESOLVE THE TENSION

four observations to kind of move us all in the same direction

I. Investing small amounts of time over time is cumulative.

A. Snowball.

Summative.

Accumulative.

Investing small amounts of time over time is cumulative or maybe let me give you a new word, a new vocabulary word.

It's summative, which means the same thing as cumulative.

Investing small amounts of time over time is cumulative.

Let me give you some illustration.

B. Example: DEEP ( Devotions, eating right, exercise , practice)

If you exercise 30 minutes a day, three or four days a week, week after week after week, year after year after year, it's cumulative.

It's summative.

It adds up to something, right?

If you have a family and you eat dinner at home with your kids three or four nights a week, week after week, year after year, it's summative.

It's cumulative.

It builds up.

If you eat right week after week, year after year, it's summative.

It's cumulative.

If you have a quiet time, if you open God's word and pray day after day after day, that becomes a habit.

It's summative.

It's cumulative.

Just a few minutes every single day.

If you're in a small group, and you're in the habit of on a weekly basis or three or four times a month opening up your life to other people, pouring your life into them, allowing them to pour their life into you.

Over time, it's cumulative.

One week in a small group isn't generally life changing.

Attending one church service isn't generally life changing.

It's cumulative.

Over time, these things build up.

Exercise, eating right, practicing something, dinner with the family, devotions, group, etc.

Problem is . . .

C. There’s no benefit to one installment and no immediate consequence for neglect.

Exercise: No one has ever walked up after you’ve exercised one time and said, “Wow . .

.”

D. This is why we are so deceived.

“One time won’t hurt.”

And we are correct.

It won’t.

A.

II.

Neglect is cumulative.

Doesn’t it seem like procrastination would have been weeded out of the human gene pool by now?

A. For example: If you don’t exercise 30 minutes a day, 365 days . . .

dinner with the family three nights a week for 52 weeks, don’t communicate with your spouse 15 minutes a day, 365 days a year . . .

If you choose not to exercise, in other words, if you set a goal, put it up on your mirror.

My goal is not to exercise 30 minutes a day, three days a week for a year.

That's cumulative as well.

If your goal is to not eat healthily, not to eat healthy seven days a week, four weeks a month for 365 days, that's cumulative as well.

If you neglect your relationships, if you neglect your kid, if you neglect your spiritual life, if you neglect your quiet time, if you drop out of church.

My goal is to not go to church for 52 weeks this... That's cumulative as well.

Neglect is cumulative

B. Neglect is easy.

No lessons or effort necessary.