Sunday message · Who Wins? series
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Message Summary
In the second week of the Who Wins? series, Pastor Phillip Santillan turns to Psalm 90:12 and to time, one of our most valuable assets. How we spend our time, he says, is how we spend our lives, so he asks who wins when we do not consider how God sees our time. Most of us have spent time in ways we knew we should not, but God has always had our best interests in mind.
In that psalm, Moses prays, “Teach us to number our days carefully.” Managing our time starts with being willing to be taught, because “every horizontal dysfunction begins with a vertical dysfunction,” as Phil puts it. Work, hobbies, family, friends and entertainment all want to teach us how to spend our time, but what if we took our cues from God, who teaches us through his word? For some, the most important step is opening the Bible with a plan. If we are too busy to learn from God, our busyness may itself come from not seeing our time as he does.
Numbering our days, the psalm continues, develops wisdom in our hearts. Phil cites a 1960 Time Magazine report in which an expert told a Senate subcommittee that technology would soon leave people wondering what to do with all their free time. Yet we still need more time. Time is one of life’s few constants, and our days are on loan from God, to whom we will one day give account. We invent ways to save time, from cars and planes to drive-through windows, but we only go more places faster.
When we ignore how God sees our time, three things lose. Our personal life loses: breakneck speed drains our joy and makes us less kind, and Phil admits he has raised his voice at his kids because he felt rushed. Our relationships lose: we have less time for those we value most, and are often mentally absent when we are with them, chasing what feels urgent but is not important. And our spiritual life loses: when we neglect time with our heavenly Father, God feels more distant. Job’s words that his days fly faster than a runner (Job 9:25) show the struggle is not new.
Phil’s last question is who wins when we do not make eternal things a priority. Our cars, houses, retirement savings and bodies will not last, and Jesus asks what we benefit if we gain the whole world but lose our soul (Mark 8:36). What matters most is our relationships with God and people, since God’s kingdom is relational. Jesus promises that if we seek first the kingdom of God and live righteously, he will give us all we need (Matthew 6:33).
Phil closes with the hope that each listener will look at their calendar and live with a sense of righteous urgency, since we are not promised tomorrow. At every decision about time, he urges everyone to stop and ask who wins when they choose to spend their time that way, and perhaps find some clarity.