Defeating Laziness
Sermon Transcript
0:00:00.0
SpongeBob SquarePants is a popular animated character on the Nickelodeon channel. Any SpongeBob fans here I know on this Father's Day? My kids are SpongeBob fans. SpongeBob lives with his friends in the sea. One of his friends is a pink starfish named Patrick. And one day Patrick won an award, a gold trophy. He won the award for "doing absolutely nothing longer than anybody else." Can you imagine that? Can you imagine an award like that for doing absolutely nothing longer than anybody else? This award was actually number one on the list of Patrick's top five lazy moments. Number five had to do with Patrick's to-don't list. Yeah, Patrick the lazy starfish didn't have a to-do list; he had a to-don't list. And one day SpongeBob comes up to Patrick, and he says, "Patrick, what are you doing?" And he says, "Nothing." Then he picked up a piece of paper and scratched off the word "nothing" from his to-don't list. On another lazy occasion, SpongeBob found his starfish friend at home sitting in front of his television. SpongeBob walks in and says, "Patrick, is this what work looks like?" And Patrick got defensive, and he says, "It's not as easy as it looks. Sometimes I have to move the antenna, sometimes I lose the remote, and sometimes my backside itches real bad." Patrick the lazy starfish. Do you know Patrick the lazy starfish? Can I be so bold this morning as to ask you, are you Patrick the lazy starfish?
0:01:42.9
We're in a series of messages called "Undefeated: Overcoming the Deadly Sins that Drag You Down." And we've talked about defeating pride, anger, last week defeating lust. This week we're talking about defeating laziness. How do you defeat laziness? Better yet, let's start by asking the question, what is laziness? I think the first thing we need to do is not confuse it with those times in our life when we have a real need for rest and relaxation. There is a lazy streak in all of us, right? It comes up every once in a while. But more often than not, we just need to rest. We need to recreate. We need to, kind of, refuel ourselves. And that's when the Lazy Days RV company, an actual company in Tampa, Florida, may be the place for you to go. They make recreational vehicles, the Lazy Days RV company. Or maybe the Lazy Day resort, an actual place in Thailand, is more your cup of tea, your speed on your lazy days when you want to do absolutely nothing because you really do need to rest and refuel and recreate some.
0:03:00.9
You know, God even created the heavens and the earth in six days. And the Bible says He rested on the seventh, not because God grew weary and tired. We know that He doesn't. But He did this to model for us a healthy rhythm of life for us as human beings. He even gave us the Sabbath commandment- six days of work and resting and doing absolutely nothing on that one day of rest. That's not laziness. That's just a smart way to rhythm your life. So, let's just understand that and not confuse laziness with our everyday need for rest and relaxation.
0:03:49.7
So, what is laziness? Dr. Neal Burton, in an article titled "The Psychology of Laziness," says, "A person is being lazy if he is able to carry out some activity that he ought to carry out but is disinclined to do so because of the effort involved." You have something that you need to do, some work that needs to be done, but you say, "I don't want to put that much effort into it." You're like Patrick the lazy starfish, the pink starfish that he is. And that's a nice cerebral definition that Dr. Burton gave to us, but I really prefer the Bible's definition of laziness. Actually, the Bible gives us a description of laziness.
0:04:36.3
It's found in Proverbs 24 beginning in verse 30. I read the verses a few moments ago, but let's read them again. This poetic, creative description of laziness and the consequences of it. Listen to this, "I pass by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and a stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received some instruction." Listen to this instruction. "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a robber and want like an armed man." I love the poetry. I love the creativity. I love the picture painted. This was written 2500, almost 3000 years ago, but it still paints the picture of Patrick the lazy, pink starfish. You walk into his house, and everything is broken down. And you wonder, yeah, "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest," a little bit of rest that goes beyond our normal need for rest and relaxation, but that creeps into that deadly sin we call laziness. A better word, a more biblical word is a "sluggard." Say that word with me, "sluggard." Doesn't it just sound like a lazy person? You sluggard, you. Or the other word the Bible uses is "slothfulness." Slothfulness.
0:06:16.9
Proverbs 20:4, "The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing." Yeah, he doesn't get around to doing the work that he needs to do in autumn. And then at harvesttime he wonders why he doesn't have anything. Well, he was a sluggard. Proverbs 19:15, "Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." I just love the sound of those words. Actually, the word "Slothfulness" was the original term used by Pope Gregory when he compiled his list of the seven deadly sins back in the 6th century. They talked about it not as laziness…that's what we talk about today, or the Lazy Day RV company or the Lazy Day hotel or whatever. Can you imagine the Slothful hotel or the Slothful recreation company? No, we use the word "lazy." Back then they used the more biblically appropriate term of "sluggard," "slothful." It just sounds like what we're talking about here.
0:07:25.0
There's been a resurgence in the popularity of sloths. Have you noticed that? They’re actually a little animal, a mammal. Disney's Zootopia has a character in it named Flash. And Flash works at the DMV, the department of mammal vehicles. We've all had that experience at the DMV where they move at the pace of a sloth. Disney got it right in Zootopia. GEICO has that commercial where they're playing Pictionary, and it's one of those timed sessions where you've got to draw something there. You've only got a few seconds to decide what it is. And one of the teams has a sloth on their team, and all he gets to is just a little bit of a line. So frustrating for everybody else because the sloth just can't keep the pace. Sloths are part of our humor today.
0:08:18.4
But this is a very serious subject, slothfulness is. It was listed among the seven deadly sins for a very, very good reason, and we'll get to that in a moment. But I think any discussion about this deadly sin—the deadly sin of laziness, of slothfulness, of sluggard—needs a strong dose and an understanding of the biblical theology of work. Let me just say it this way. Your work matters to God. How you work, the diligence with which you give yourself to your work, it matters to God. Doug Sherman wrote a book by that title 20 or 30 years ago, Your Work Matters to God. It's probably the best work that I've seen that really dives into the scripture and gets after, in a positive way, a biblical theology of work and diligence. I could come up with, maybe, another book, a companion to this called Your Slothfulness Concerns God, but I don't think it would sell as many copies. It just wouldn't Doug Sherman's is a better book, Your Work Matters to God.
0:09:34.6
Slothfulness carries with it a moral and spiritual meaning. It's one of the deadly sins because it undermines productivity in society and ultimately undermines God's plan. Ecclesiastes 10:18 says, "Through sloth the roof sinks in, and through indolence the house leaks." If somebody came to your house and saw the roof leaking and things in disrepair, would they be justified in saying a lazy person lives there? "They don't even have the energy to fix the things around the house. They just let it continue in disrepair." Are you the lazy person who is too lazy to fix something around the house? Sloth is the enemy of productivity and a job well-done. And when we dive into the biblical theology of work, some of you may think that "work was part of the curse, wasn't it, pastor?" You go all the way back to Genesis, and work was cursed. No, it wasn't. Work was part of the creative order all the way back in the beginning. In fact, Genesis 2:15 it says, "The Lord God took the man," that was Adam, "and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it." Work was God's idea. He gave Adam work to do. Adam was in paradise, and he had work and productivity to do.
0:11:06.0
Then the Bible tells us in Genesis 3 that sin entered into the world. God didn't curse work. No, He cursed the serpent. Then He made it difficult for childbirth to happen for the female and introduced a little contrariness between the husband and the wife. And then He cursed the ground, making it more difficult for Adam to be productive. But the rhythm of life given to us all the way back in the book of Genesis was six days of work, one of rest. Exodus 20:11 says, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy." One of the reasons God gave us the Sabbath was for rest. It pictures also something theologically I won't take the time to go into, but just for us to rest. It's a rhythm of life. Jesus said in John 5:17, "My father is working until now; and I am working." God is always working.
0:12:12.1
Sometimes we talk about the great American work ethic. American workers are some of the best workers in the world. Where did that come from, that good old-fashioned American work ethic? Some people point historically back to 16th and 17th centuries when a group of people came over called the Puritans. It's sometimes called the American work ethic; other times it's called the Puritan work ethic. These were people of faith. They came to this country, and they were hard-working people. Because back then, part of the Puritan work ethic was this idea that the farmer felt just as called to plowing his field as the preacher felt called to preaching his sermons. They had a well-formed biblical theology of work, and they worked as unto the Lord. There was no slothfulness. There was no sluggardness. There was no laziness, and those who were, were frowned upon. And that good, old-fashioned Puritan/American work ethic rooted in faith helped grow this country and helped build the great American worker that we have today. But I can suggest to you that old American work ethic is under attack today.
0:13:35.0
Now, because we live in a fallen world, we have drifted from the created norm of working for six days, resting on one. I know that was a paradise thing. After paradise, it became harder to be productive and to work the ground, and we've drifted into a five-day work week with two days of rest. Some people in the world have a three-day weekend and four days of work. In the earlier hour somebody shouted, "Amen for that." I understand. But that's being introduced even in our world today. The socialism and communism mindset will always drift away from the good old American Puritan work ethic that is rooted in a biblical theology of work. It's a subtle attack on Christianity. Beware of that. But some are now arguing for a four-day work week and three days of rest. Just how far we have drifted in our fallen world, and how our productivity continues to decline. I know some people argue that you can be more productive with three days of rest rather than two days of rest, and certainly more than one day of rest. I'll leave that for the experts to argue. But your work matters to God. If you have a little bit of Patrick the lazy starfish in you, this may be the very deadly sin that drags you down and undermines your productivity and ultimately God's plan that He wants to produce through you and through me.
0:15:14.8
How do we defeat laziness? Three simple ways. Number one, practice diligence. What do I mean by diligence? Well, we've been talking about the seven deadly sins- pride, anger, lust, laziness…we'll get onto gluttony, envy and greed in the weeks to come. But alongside the vicious vices, we have also talked about some heavenly virtues that correspond to them. And the heavenly virtue that corresponds to the vicious vice known as laziness is what we would call diligence or hard work. The lazy person hardly works, but the diligence person works hard.
0:15:56.4
Proverbs 12:24, "The hand of the diligent will rule, while the sloth will be put to forced labor." Proverbs 13:4, "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." Proverbs 21:15, "The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes to poverty." You read throughout the book of Proverbs, and over and over again the wise person is the diligent person. The foolish person is the sluggard, the sloth, the lazy person.
0:16:42.2
The apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." One of the things that a biblical theology work will do…it'll change your attitude at work. Maybe you have a boss that you're working for, and he or she doesn't exactly inspire productivity in you. Or that desire to be diligent and to go the extra mile. Well, when you understand you're not working for your boss, you're working for the Lord Christ…and apparently there's an eternal reward, an inheritance as your reward related to how we work and how we give our whole heart to it.
0:17:36.1
I came out of the business world years ago and into vocational ministry. And one of the things that concerned me was that the ministry can really be a place that fuels laziness in pastors if they're not careful, because you only see me on Sunday. You don't see me during the week. I can turn it on on Sunday. Anybody on staff can. Or maybe a couple times during the week when we're interacting. But you don't have any oversight or eyes on what I'm doing with the rest of my time. It's easy to coast in the ministry. It's never been my wiring to work that way. I didn't work in the business world that way.
0:18:18.7
One time I had a pastor on my staff years ago in another state. He was a worship pastor. I came on staff, and I'm, you know, go, go, go, work, work, work. And "here are some ideas; here are some things that we can do." And I could tell there was a little bit of resistance coming my way. One day he came up to me, and he says, "You know, Pastor, the people around here just don’t have that high of expectations." And it was all I could do from just jumping into the middle of him, because what he was communicating to me was, "I'm that guy that is trying to figure out the least I can do to keep my paycheck and keep my job. (0:19:00.0) Why are we raising expectations? Why are we doing more than what people expect us to do?" I'll tell you why. Because you're working for the Lord Christ. You're serving Him. And that's not just a thing for ministers and people in the ministry. It's for any of us that take a job.
0:19:16.8
I know your boss may not be your ideal person to work for, but whatever you do, the Bible says, work heartily. Bring your whole heart to it. It ought to be said of Christians in the workplace they're the best workers out there. I get the American work ethic and we celebrate that. The Christian worker ought to be the best worker in the plant or the best worker in the office because they bring their whole heart. You're willing to go the extra mile, not just to do enough to keep your job and to get a paycheck, clocking in and clocking out. I know we don't want to wander into the world of (0:20:00.0) workaholism, and we want to balance work and all of that. But listen, 40 hours of work means 40 hours of productive work that you're giving, not 10 of it sitting around the watercooler and chitchatting, or 10 of it figuring out, how can I just kind of coast and slide by? "Whatever you do, work heartily as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ." Practice diligence.
0:20:30.4
Number two, consider the consequences of laziness. Let's go back into the book of Proverbs, which, through multiple pithy statements, lays out some warnings. It warns the sluggard. It warns the slothful person. It warns the person who is just trying to skate by in a way that nobody notices in the office, that you're just skating by. Consider these consequences. Number one is poverty. Proverbs 10:4, "Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands bring wealth." Proverbs 14:23, "In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty." Another consequence is shame. Proverbs 10:5, "He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame."
0:21:35.7
How about hunger as a consequence of laziness? Proverbs 12:11, "Whoever works his hand will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense." Or Proverbs 19:15, "Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." Another word that the Bible uses to describe slothfulness and sluggardness and laziness is idleness. The person who just parks it and puts it in idle when he should be putting it in drive and pressing the accelerator and go, go, go. It's work time. It's double time. Let's get to work now.
0:22:19.1
Another consequence of laziness is disappointment. Proverbs 13:4, "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." Have you ever been there when the lazy person says, "Why did you get rewarded like that? Why did you get the promotion? Why do you have what you have?" Well, because I worked hard for it. And the sluggard craves. He wants those things, but they don’t come to him.
0:22:51.3
Which leads me to the last consequence- no career advancement. Listen to this in Proverbs 12:24. "The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor." Have you noticed that in your work situation in your office? The hardworking person eventually gets the promotion. The hardworking person who goes the extra mile, who does maybe more than the job description requires, not less, well, "The hand of the diligent will rule; the slothful will be put to forced labor." I take that to mean you're going to be in a job you hate because you never got promoted. You never got moved and advanced. The consequences of laziness.
0:23:37.6
So, practice diligence, consider the consequences of laziness, and then, thirdly, imitate hardworking people. Let's go back to Proverbs again, and this time to chapter 6 beginning in verse 6, where the writer of Proverbs says, "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?" And then here are those familiar words that we found in chapter 24, " A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a robber and want like an armed man." Sluggardness and slothfulness will rob you of everything that you want. But he gives an example here. He says check out the ant. Check out this tiny little creature that doesn’t have a chief or a ruler. He doesn't have anybody say, "It's time to get up. Time to go to work. It's time to do this. Have you done that?"
0:24:56.0
If you're a boss or a business owner and you have a lazy, sluggardy kind of person, you're always having to tell them what to do. The best employee is the one who is five steps ahead of you, who understands the mission and the direction that you're going. They've already anticipated it. Go to the ant. This little tiny creature doesn’t need somebody telling him what to do, but, oh, the productivity in an ant colony. It's really one of those amazing things in nature.
0:25:30.1
You know, today is Father's Day. And I've got to tell you, some of the work ethic that I learned growing up I learned from my dad. My dad grew up on the farm in Iowa. He has a farmer's hands. I mean, my dad will shake your hand, and, if you're not careful, he'll break your knuckles. He's got a grip that developed when he'd work the farm. He later left the farm, came into the city and work a few careers and landed in real estate. My dad was always a hard worker. Sometimes he'll even admit he creeped into that area of workaholism and didn't always balance work and life very well. But he was a hard, hard worker. Sometimes we'd get up on Saturdays, and he'd say, "Hey, boys,"—I had two brothers—"come on out here. Let's rake some leaves." And we lived in this neighborhood that had these huge oak trees, and during the fall they'd drop pounds and pounds and pounds of leaves. "Let's just go rake a few leaves," and we'd be there from 9:00 in the morning to 4:00 in the afternoon, 35 bags later. And I'm, like, "Dad, no!" But, you know, if there was work to be done, there was work to be done. And I didn’t do very well as a young person doing that kind of work. I always wanted to go play with my friends or play baseball or basketball in the neighborhood. But I learned hard work from the good example of my dad, who was very diligent and got the job done and finished the job well.
0:27:15.2
One more example. Go with me to 2 Thessalonians 3. The example of the ant. You may have a personal example in your father or somebody else that modeled this for you. But here is an example the apostle Paul gave of himself to the church in Thessalonica. 2 Thessalonians 3 beginning in verse 6, the apostle Paul says, "Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…" Notice how he brings the authority of Jesus Christ Himself to what he's about to say. He says that "you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition you received from us." Those are strong words. He says stay away from the sluggard. Stay away from the slothful person. By all means, don't hire that person. Do your homework in the hiring process. Make sure you're not onboarding a sloth or a sluggard. He says, "I'm telling you this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, stay away from that person." And then he says in verse 7, "For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burned to any of you. It was not because we did not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate." Paul had every right to expect to be paid for the ministry that he was doing amongst the Thessalonians. But Paul says, "No, I'm going to work for my bread. I’m going to work for my living because I'm going to set an example for you here."
0:29:11.4
He goes on to say, "For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat." This ought to be written on public policy in Washington, D.C. and in state houses and in local…if you're not willing to work, we're not going to just keep handing out food stamps. Do we need a safety net for people who need a safety net? Absolutely. But we took a giant step…well, back to the good old American/Puritan biblical work ethic when we said, no, we need a welfare-to-work program. Quit incentivizing people, government, to not work.
0:29:58.5
We're in the midst of this global pandemic, and we're coming out of it some. Businesses are starting up again. I got a haircut a couple weeks ago. I went to the place where I get my haircut. I said just real casually, "I was a little surprised that you guys didn't start working and start cutting hair as soon as the governor said it was time to do that." And she said, "Well, some of us kind of figured out that we were making more money collecting unemployment than we were working, so we stretched it out a couple more weeks. The government needs to read 2 Thessalonians 3. Stop incentivizing people not to work. And the good old American productivity will fire up the engine again. Paul was pretty straightforward about that. Paul gave them an example of hard work to imitate.
0:30:53.6
You got anybody like that in your life? Maybe your father, your grandfather, a friend, a neighbor. Parent and grandparents, are you providing that kind of example to your kids and your grandkids? Will they ever look back on Father's Day, dad and grandads, and say, "Wow, my grandad and my father; I learned how to work hard and put in a good day's work from my father who worked hard. His work ethic was rooted in faith."
0:31:25.9
So, practice diligence, consider the consequences of laziness, imitate hard working people. And unless you need a little bit laughter during that time of just normal need for rest and relaxation, I suppose it's okay to watch a little bit of SpongeBob and Patrick the lazy, pink starfish. But don't imitate him. Don't imitate him. He won an award for the top five lazy moments in his life. Are you kidding me? I guarantee you, in heaven there is no reward for slothfulness, not a single one.
0:32:04.7
But when we get to heaven, we will worship the Lord. But there is work to be done as well. You read the end of the Bible, the book of Revelation, the picture of the new heaven and the new earth. If you've got some idea that heaven is a place where you're going to float around on clouds and strum your harp, you haven't read the Bible. There is work to be done. But it'll be back to paradise. We've gone from paradise to paradise lost, where work is harder. It's more difficult to be productive. Maybe we need more time to rest. But we're heading back to paradise as believers in Jesus Christ, and we will work for all of eternity, working out God's great plans and purposes. And we will be fulfilled in our work like we were meant to be fulfilled. No sluggards. No slots. No Patrick the pink starfish, winning any awards for his top five lazy moments. Let's defeat laziness so that if the Lord were to call us home today, He'd say, "That's great. I've got a guy or gal walking into eternity right now. They've been a good worker on earth; they're going to be a great worker in heaven."
0:33:32.4
Jesus said, "My father is always working, and I am working too." He said that in response to some who took him to task for healing a man on the Sabbath. You know what kind of work He's doing? He's working overtime to draw men and women and boys and girls to the cross of Jesus Christ, and He's doing that work right now in some of your hearts whether you're here in person or you're watching online. He's working hard to get you to the cross, where you find forgiveness of your sins and a home in heaven where that free give of eternal life becomes your possession by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The work the Father sent Jesus to do was a work of redemption and a work of reconciliation through the cross. He went into the grave. He rose triumphantly on the third day. And Jesus says, "It is finished. It's finished. The work that you sent me do is finished." He hung around for another 40 days or so, and then ascended to the Father. He promised He's coming again. But that work of redemption was complete. He didn't stop short. He didn't try to shortcut it in any way. He finished the work. He got the job done. And He's coming back to get us one day.
0:34:58.3
Are you ready for that? Have you placed your faith and trust in Jesus Christ? Have you responded to the call? The Bible says that, "For by grace we have been saved through faith; and that not of ourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast." The good news—even as we talk about laziness and we talk about a biblical theology of work—you don't work for your salvation. The work had already been done. Jesus did all the work that was necessary for us to be reconciled to Him by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. So maybe one of the easiest things for us to do is just come to faith in Christ. It doesn't require any work on our part. In fact, your works, they won't even get you in the door. That's the good news today. So, work in your job. Be diligent in what you do. But don't work for your salvation. The work has already been done by the Lord Jesus Christ.
0:36:00.1