Giving Your Time (Being a Penny Christian #1)

Kids, before we start, I have some jokes. Because I’m not nearly as cool as your regular teachers, and I have to try.

What do you call a video of a clock on your phone? A tick-tock.

What do you call a really smart clock? Clockwise.

What do you call candy that never arrives on time? Choco-late.

And I don’t want any arguing about this: 6:30 is the best time on a clock. Hands down. (You have to be able to read an analog clock for that one. Those of you raised entirely digital are just staring at me.)

I should probably explain why clocks were on my mind. I had an uncle who got fired from a watchmaking factory recently — he was putting in too many hours.

And this past week I read that a new flying insect has been discovered, and the unique thing about it is that it only lays its eggs inside clocks. They’re called time flies.

All right, last one, and it’s my favorite: eating a clock is really time-consuming. Especially if you go back for seconds.

Kids, what was the theme in all of those? Clocks — and watches. So: time.

Today’s sermon is called Giving Your Time. We started by joking about it. The passage we’re going to look at does not treat time as a joke at all. It treats it as deadly serious.

What Is a Penny Christian?

Open your Bible to Psalm 90.

We’re kicking off a three-week series I’m calling Being a Penny Christian. Not a petty Christian — we need no practice at that; human beings are already world-class.

You’ve heard plenty of adjectives attached to the word Christian. American Christian. Evangelical Christian. Progressive Christian. You have never heard of a Penny Christian, because I made it up. So if you think it’s a lame title, now you know why.

Here’s where it comes from.

Years ago — back when phones had cords and Facebook was known as your high school yearbook or the church directory — my wife and I were young marrieds with no kids, and we decided to go to the mission field. We chose Venezuela, to work at a school for missionary children.

The school didn’t pay a salary. We had to raise our own support. The idea was that we’d teach the kids of missionaries while those missionaries planted churches and helped people understand who Jesus is.

So we wrote letters to family, friends, and churches. A few of those churches let us come speak — sometimes to the whole congregation, usually to a smaller group. One church invited us to speak to their Awana kids on a Wednesday night.

Since we were speaking to children, we figured we’d better build a lesson they’d actually enjoy. And in our preparation we came across a little illustration that has stuck with me ever since.

A missionary, by definition, is someone sent by God to another nation, another country, another people, so those people can hear the life-changing gospel of Jesus. In other words, a missionary is one sent.

And a penny is one cent.

Penny: one c-e-n-t. Missionary: one s-e-n-t.

The Comment That Bothered Me

A few weeks later we were invited to a church for their missions week. It ran Sunday night through Friday, with a different missionary every evening.

We got Thursday.

Think about that. By Thursday of a week like that, people are exhausted. We spoke to about twelve people. Friday night was the big send-off, and they expected a hundred. Thankfully they pooled all the offerings and divided them evenly, or I think we’d have walked out with about $5.36.

After we finished, we were standing at our little table with our prayer cards, and a man came up gushing about how wonderful we were. And then he said this: “I think being a missionary is the highest calling anyone could have.”

But the way he said it, I could sense the second half of the sentence he didn’t say. And because I haven’t been called to be a missionary, I must not be as good. I must not be as loved. There must be something wrong with me.

And that really bothered me.

Because me going to Venezuela didn’t make me more special than if I’d been sent to Virginia. The mission was identical. Yes, I was called to Venezuela — for two years. After that I went to Denver. After Denver, Cedar Rapids. And from Cedar Rapids we came here to plant this church.

I am not better or worse based on the location. The mission is the same: help people find and follow Jesus.

That’s when it began to dawn on me. The call Jesus gives to go and make disciples isn’t reserved for people willing to move overseas. It’s for everyone who follows Him.

If you are a Christian, you are one sent. You are a Penny Christian.

Maybe you’re sent overseas, like the missionaries this church supports. Maybe you’re sent to a factory floor. Maybe you’re sent to the middle school. Maybe you’re sent to your soccer team, or your neighborhood.

You’re still sent.

So for three weeks we’re asking what that looks like. A Penny Christian does three things: gives their time, gives their heart, and gives their words. Today is time.

“Isn’t This Just Evangelism?”

Some of you are catching on and getting nervous. Wait — you’re saying we have to share our faith. Isn’t that wrapped up in that big scary word, evangelism?

And if you follow things closely here, you’re thinking: you’re already running a series on evangelism in the weekly email, and now Sundays too? Nobody enjoys this conversation. Maybe I’ll check out for August and come back when you’re on something more comfortable.

Here’s why we’re doing it.

Last January we started the year, as we usually do, with twenty-one days of prayer and fasting. This year’s theme was gospel growth. The first week we prayed that God would grow His gospel within us. The second week, that He’d grow it within us as a church body. And the final week, that He’d grow the gospel around us, in our community.

And God’s primary vehicle for spreading the good news of His love through Christ into a community is humans.

So if you follow Jesus, you are sent, and you are called to evangelize. What I hope you’ll see is that evangelism isn’t standing on a corner shouting into a bullhorn. Evangelism can be spending time with someone, living your faith naturally, talking about what the love of God means in your life, and letting God work in theirs.

That’s worth three weeks — because I believe that watching someone’s eternity change will be one of the greatest moments you ever experience. And I want you to have that joy.

A Prayer of Moses

Psalm 90 was once joined with Psalm 91 as a single longer psalm; at some point someone decided it worked better as two. That doesn’t change anything, but it’s worth knowing, because they share an author.

Look at the heading: A Prayer of Moses. Yes, that Moses — who led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and shepherded them forty years in the wilderness before God raised up Joshua to bring them across the Jordan into the promised land.

This is the only psalm we have from Moses. He may have written hundreds. This is the one God chose to preserve.

And it opens exactly as you’d expect:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Most of us read that and settle in. It’s comforting. We want to keep going.

And then Moses takes a hard, dark turn.

You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Pause and wonder what was going on in him. I believe Scripture is ultimately written by God, but God uses the quirks, personalities, and circumstances of real people. Was Moses near the end of his life, thinking about death? Had something terrible just happened? Read the story of Israel in the wilderness and you’ll find plagues and tragedies enough to prompt this.

I don’t know. I only know he wrote it.

“So God Was Cranky in the Old Testament?”

He opens with you are our dwelling place, from everlasting to everlasting — and then God doesn’t just sound cranky. He sounds cruel.

Verse 3: God returns man to dust. Verse 5: you sweep them away as with a flood. Verse 7: we are brought to an end by your anger. Verse 9: all our days pass away under your wrath.

I’ve heard people say God in the New Testament is nice, but in the Old Testament He was mean, and they’d rather not follow that God. And all the proof they need is Psalm 90.

I believe God loves you passionately, and I don’t think this contradicts that at all. So what’s happening here?

First: God’s anger is aimed at sin, not at humanity.

Look at verse 8: “You have set our iniquities before you” — kids, iniquity is just a fancy word for sin — “our secret sins in the light of your presence.”

God created humans in His own image, and He loves humanity. It devastates Him to see His creation steeped in sin. So His anger is first and foremost against sin.

Now, as sin-bearers we end up absorbing some of that. But ultimately the wrath is not aimed at us as His creation. It’s aimed at what has infected us.

If you doubt that, look at the cross. If God genuinely hated us and simply wanted us wiped away, He would never have sent Jesus. The cross proves His anger was against sin itself.

Second: death is part of this world.

Verse 10 says our years are seventy, or by strength eighty, and their span is toil and trouble.

You may live a long time. Seventy, eighty, a hundred. And those years carry enormous pain — physical, emotional, spiritual. That pain is here because of sin, and it exposes our need for God, the one described in verse 1 as our dwelling place. It shows that we will only find joy and fulfillment in Him.

Which means maybe death isn’t only an ending. Maybe it’s also a relief.

Verse 9 says we bring our years to an end “like a sigh.” Digging into the Hebrew, that’s closer to a moan of anguish. But sitting with all the toil and trouble in this psalm, I wonder whether that sigh might also be one of relief — because at last the pain is finished.

Third — and most important: God is showing us how different He is.

The whole psalm contrasts our mortality with His immortality.

Verse 2 describes God as “from everlasting to everlasting.” Kids, that means God had no beginning and will have no end. You have a birth date, and — to be morbid — you will have a death date. God has neither. He is eternal, constant, continual.

That’s why verse 4 says a thousand years to God are like yesterday.

Out in the lobby before the service I was asking people about their vacations. You could recall the details easily. But if I asked about your vacation seven or eight years ago, you’d be squinting — I think we went there? I think we did that? You remember yesterday. You remember last week.

To God, that’s how the last thousand years feel. You don’t ask God how His day was yesterday. You ask how His last millennium went. Created a few things. Did a few miracles. Pretty good.

He is entirely outside of time.

You Are a Dash

So is God showing off? Is this a brag — I’m more powerful than you, I’m the five-year-old and you’re the ants?

No. I think He’s helping us.

You’ve probably heard the tombstone illustration. Preachers love it. You walk through a cemetery and see a headstone with a name, a birth date, and a death date. And between those two dates there’s a dash. The pastor turns to the congregation and says: that dash is your life. What will you do with your dash? Then he drops the mic.

That’s essentially what God is doing in Psalm 90. He is a circle — no beginning, no end. You and I are a dash.

And realizing that changes you.

James, the brother of Jesus, puts it this way: What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

And that actually helps — which is exactly Moses’s point in verse 12:

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

The Currency of Life

The currency of life is seconds and minutes, not money.

Money is the currency of the economy — and money can be gained and lost. You can get rebates and refunds. You can go bankrupt and then become a millionaire.

Time doesn’t work that way. Once it’s spent, it’s gone. You will never get that second, that minute, that year, that decade back.

So: teach us to number our days.

Kids, that doesn’t mean going home and deciding what day you’ll die. Nobody knows their end date except God. It’s a poetic way of saying: realize you only have so much time on this earth.

That’s uncomfortable for most of us. We don’t want to think that way. Kids, you have years and years ahead of you — we hope — so it feels like time is unlimited. And yet even if you live the seventy or eighty years of verse 10, even if you set a world record for longevity, it’s still a mist compared to the eternality of God.

And that knowledge helps. Look at the second half of verse 12: when you grasp how mortal you are, you gain a heart of wisdom.

Do you ever feel like you need wisdom? I need it constantly — about what to do, what to say, how to handle a person.

Wisdom comes from spending time with God, learning from Scripture, and being around genuinely wise people. It also comes through life and experience. But clearly it also comes from realizing we have limited time, which makes us start spending it very differently.

Which means your limitedness — your shortness, your dash — is actually a gift. In this dark, morose, God-sounds-cranky passage, when you dig in, you find God handing you something. And He wants you to use it for His glory, because He knows it will bring you great joy.

So How Should We Use It?

Because we’re at church, some of you would say: go to church. Great answer, and I mean more than attending — be part of a church family. Others would say pray. Also a great answer. Read your Bible. Yes.

But remember the series. We are sent. Which means being a good steward of our time includes giving some of it to others.

Just as Christ set aside His throne in heaven to give His time and ultimately His life for us — if we’re going to live like Jesus lived and love like Jesus loved, we have to give our time away.

For some of you this is easy. Some of you love to serve and find real joy in it. Some of you are extroverts, and being alone drives you crazy, so spending time with people fills your tank. Some of you have a genuine gift of hospitality, and cooking a meal and hosting people costs you nothing.

But if you’re like me, you’re selfish with your time. When an opening appears in my schedule, my first thought is not who could I have coffee with? It’s how do I get some me time? That’s a window for a movie, a book, a puzzle, a workout.

I’m not saying you can’t have time to yourself. I’m saying too many of us spend all of it on ourselves, and never give it where it needs to be given.

Three Tips

1. Schedule it.

Get it on your calendar. Kids, your parents keep your schedule, but you can do some of this too — find someone to invest in, find a place worth your time.

Because I’m so selfish with my time, I’ve deliberately signed up for things that force the issue. I do a mentoring program that puts me somewhere for thirty minutes once a week, giving time to someone else. I hope it blesses him. I know I walk away thinking it did as much for me as for him.

For some of you it could be as simple as one morning a month at the food pantry — an hour or two making sure people can fill their shelves.

Here’s what happens otherwise. You think, I should check on my neighbor. Maybe mow her lawn, or take a meal — she just had surgery. And then the TV goes on and it never happens.

So the moment you have the thought, put it in your calendar or on your to-do list. Right then.

2. Invite.

I’m not asking you to stop doing the things you love. I’m asking you to use some of that time to bring someone with you.

You love golf? Invite someone to play. Going to a game or a movie? Invite someone. Love hiking, or shopping, or trying a new restaurant? Bring someone along.

You don’t have to sacrifice what you enjoy. Invite people into it and invest in them there.

3. Repurpose.

Most of us have moments we simply waste. Some of you are constantly on the go and hate doing nothing. Others of you are world-class at scrolling. Your thumb is enormously strong — I would not want to thumb-wrestle you, you’d destroy me — and at the end of it, what have you accomplished?

Could you repurpose that?

Sitting in the waiting room at the doctor, the dentist, the DMV — instead of scrolling social media or opening the same game, could you send someone a text? Just thinking of you. Praying for you. Maybe your Bible app has a verse of the day — could you send it along? Here’s today’s verse; it meant a lot to me, and here’s why.

What can you do to take the moments you’d naturally spend on yourself and turn them into a blessing for someone else?

Don’t Ignore Yourself Either

I’m not asking you to erase yourself. Some of you are introverts, and if you give away every minute you’ll become cranky and nobody will want to be near you.

So the real question is: how do I find my wholeness in God, letting Him be my dwelling place as verse 1 says — and fulfill the call to be sent?

Because God did not put you on this earth for yourself. He put you here for Him and for others.

And when you start giving your time away, you’ll bring people joy — and you’ll discover it brings joy to you as well. You never know: the time you give someone might change their eternity, even as it gains you a heart of wisdom.

You have only so many days on this planet. Use them wisely, for His kingdom and His glory — because doing so brings immense joy.

You are one sent.