Good evening, I am Neil, Neil McMillan, and I'm the Minister of one of the church
plants out of St. Columba's, it's called Cornerstone. So we're going through the
idea of sort of looking at life from the point of view of wisdom in the church,
different topics associated with wisdom and proverbs and so on, and really they've
chosen the preacher according to what your kind of strengths are. So I got
sloth and boredom. I am a lazy man then. I was going to preach to you tonight
about laziness and sloth, but I can't really be bothered. I am kind of asking
myself what's the point, because if you're here tonight you're not lazy are
you, because the lazy people stayed home and the hard-working people came to
church twice on Sunday, so I don't know if we should really bother at all. And
that's one of the things about laziness is that we generally tend to think that
laziness is someone else's problem. A few of us would probably say that we were
lazy, and most of us are probably more obsessed with actually how busy we feel,
and we live in a culture where people are always going on and on and on and on
and on about I'm so busy, I'm so busy, you're so busy, we're all so busy, and
yet beneath that sense of busyness and sort of hectic activity, often there's a
lot of wasted time and futility in our lives. So a few weeks ago, Corey was
preaching on wisdom, introducing this sermon series, and one of the things that
he said is this, that a wise life is a life that is lived well in relation to God,
in relation to others, and in relation to the world that we live in. Wisdom is a
life lived well in relation to God, in relation to others, in relation to the
world that we live in. Wisdom is about learning to make good ethical decisions
in all the areas of life that the Bible doesn't lay down rules. So what job
should I do? Who might I date? What time should I get up in the morning? How do I
help the poor? What do I do about human slavery? These aren't things that the
Bible gives us prescriptive rules for, but they're important issues that we
need to make decisions about, and that's what wisdom is. And Jesus, of course, is
wisdom personified. He's come to rescue us from a life of foolishness. If you want
to know what a foolish person looks like in the book of Proverbs, then I think
the Proverbs says to us, he or she looks like a lazy person. Lazyness epitomizes
the foolish life. All the gifts, all the talents, all the time, all the resources
that we have, laziness fritters those things away. The lazy life is a life of
wasted opportunity, of gifts left to rot, of procrastination. The lazy life is
unfulfilled potential, lost joys, beauty and goodness undiscovered, all because we
couldn't be bothered. It seemed too much effort. Didn't really seem worth it. We're
lazy about lots of things in life. Often we're really lazy about our relationship
towards God. Often we're really lazy about our relationships with family
members and colleagues. Often we're really lazy when it comes to caring for
the world that God has put us in. We don't give any of those relationships the
time, the attention, the thought, the prayer and the effort that would mark a
life lived well. The lazy person is the person who's going to look back on life
and feel that they've wasted so much and then they're going to say, but who cares
anyway. I read an article on laziness by somebody called Andy Farmer. He wrote
about the laziness trap. He's a sovereign grace pastor in the United States. He said
this laziness ensnares and controls people in habits that last for decades.
Laziness lays waste to our potential. Quoting another writer, he says,
laziness just grows in people. It begins in cobwebs, it ends in iron chains.
Laziness leaves us with the annoying pain of regret, a life of unfulfilled dreams,
failed plans and disappointed loved ones. The lazy person feels like a prisoner in
their own life. They're stuck but they don't know what to do about it. So we're
going to just go through this idea of laziness, find out what it looks like,
find out what it does to us, find out what the alternatives are and how we can
embrace them. So the first thing is what does the lazy life look like? Well in some
of the passages that we read it was described as slothfulness. That's the
title of the sermon, the sloth. And a tree sloth is a creature that has one gift
in life and that gift is the gift of sleep. Sleep is what the sloth does best.
So when I read that I was kind of worried because if you asked me what I do best I
would say I am very good at sleeping. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. Just shut
my eyes off I go. Love a good nap. The sloth only stirs when it's hungry. The
craving for food becomes stronger than the craving for sleep. It's like you know
laying down your remote or your control for your PlayStation for a few
minutes so that you can order a pizza. That kind of deal. The main defense the
sloth has against the hazards of life is inactivity. If I just stay still nothing
can really go wrong. Lots of us are like that. We're kind of paralysed in life. We
don't really attempt much because if we don't attempt much not much can go wrong.
In the wild the sloth is often mistaken for a pile of dead leaves. Sloth is the
English, old English for slow. So the slothful person is the slow person so
we've got the sluggard who's described in some of these passages in the book of
Proverbs and the word sluggard comes guess what from the word slug. Think of
your garden slug meandering its way across the path. It rests more than it
moves. Most of the time it's just stationary. Slothfulness the sluggard is
someone who is a habitual disinclination to exertion. Don't exert
yourself. Don't put yourself out. Don't make any great effort. The sluggard is the
slacker, the loafer, the idler, the indolent and the inert. The lazy person
loves idleness. It's what they want and long for and look forward to. Lazy people
avoid anything that feels like pressure and they put things off for as long as
they can. Laziness is often marked by tardiness and laziness are always
looking for a moment of relaxation even when they're supposed to be working. The
lazy person is constantly amusing and distracting themselves. Wait a minute I'll
just look that up. Check my Facebook. Text my friends. Facebook messaging.
Catching up on the news for the fifth time that morning and all the time you're
supposed to be working. Mark Twain said this. He said I have seen slower people
than I am and even quieter and more listless and lazier people than I am.
But they were dead. Okay. That's the way so many of us are. The lazy person is a
bit of a joke. Listen to what the book of Proverbs says. The sluggard says there's
a lion in the road. There's a lion in the streets. They're making any kind of wild
excuse they can just not to bother. As a door turns in its hinges so a slugger
turns on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in his bag of chips but it wears
him out to bring it back to his mouth. This is the life of the sluggard and
it's probably to some extent a description of your life at some levels.
Avoiding what needs to be done, making up excuses, always thinking about your own
comfort. And the thing about this is that Proverbs doesn't just sort of laugh at
the sluggard because laziness is folly and folly is sin. So we may think you know
does it matter? And the Bible says yes it matters. Because the lazy person is living
without the fear of God. They're living a selfish life and a self-indulgent life
instead of saying how do I love God well and how do I love my neighbor? The
lazy person doesn't want to give up their way of life or their comforts for
anyone or anything. Andy Farmer who wrote that article in laziness said this,
my definition of sloth, slothfulness is the determined bent of my heart that
stubbornly insists on its own way. Do you get that? What's a lazy person doing?
They're really saying I want my own way. When we say I prefer not to do that, that
is the sloth's way of saying no to God. So many lazy people and so many of us
when we're being lazy, what we say is not now. Later we put things off because
they might disturb our comfort. And many of the things that we put off, many of
the things that we delay and procrastinate over are things that God has
said are really important and that He's calling us to do now, not later. So that's
what a lazy life looks like. What are the consequences of a lazy life? That's the
second thing. Well the lazy life leaves us bored and dissatisfied. In Proverbs
chapter 13 it says this, the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the
soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Craving but getting nothing. It's a life
of dissatisfaction and bored. I'm fed up. I'm not happy. This sucks. That's the
sluggard's life. Dissatisfied and empty. It's boring. Secondly, the second
consequence is not fruitful. Proverbs 24, 20 verse 4 says this, the sluggard does
not plow in the autumn, so he's not preparing. So when he seeks at harvest
he will have nothing. It's a life that fails to bear real lasting fruit, a life
that doesn't really make any difference in the long term. Verse 34 of chapter 24
says this, poverty comes on the sluggard like a bandit or like a robber. The
poverty of scarce resources perhaps, but also the poverty of poor relationships.
A poor relationship with God because we've not pursued it. A poor relationship
with others because we're not learning to love them well and see their needs and
serve them carefully. We don't make time to talk to the people that we really need
to talk to. We don't make the effort to serve the people that we really ought to
be serving. The sluggard is dull to the needs of others and just assume that
everything's going to be okay. So the sluggard's life is boring, it's not
fruitful. The sluggard, he makes life harder for himself, not easier. Being a
sluggard or being lazy creates more problems than it solves. So in Proverbs
chapter 15 verse 9 it says the way of the sluggard is like a path of thorns.
You know you think it's going to be the easy road but it's the hard road. The
path of the upright is a level highway. So avoiding stuff just creates more
stress in the long term, not less stress. And the sluggard, their life also
creates problems for others. Chapter 10 verse 26, like vinegar to the teeth, smoke
to the eyes so as the sluggard to them who sense him. The lazy person lets other
people down. The lazy person is a pain to the rest of us or the laziness of
others. Laziness makes us a problem to our family or to our colleagues. And when
we are lazy people just lower their expectations of us. It becomes easier just
not to ask anything. People have to work round us. And the problem is we're always
people in community. What we don't do impacts others. So in the Proverbs it
says he who gathers in summer is a prudent son. But he who sleeps in harvest
is a son who brings shame. You see that? The son who doesn't gather in the harvest
he brings shame, poverty, scarcity on his father, his family. What you do, what you
fail to do, what you can't be bothered doing, what you leave to later is always
having ripple effects out into the lives of those around you. So if you're a
husband your laziness impacts your wife. If you're a parent your laziness
laziness impacts your kids. If you're a child then your laziness impacts your
parents. Laziness affects our colleagues, laziness affects others in the church.
And so people have to compensate for us, work around us. Laziness is about
neglect. It's about waste, disappointment and failure. The lazy life lets things go
to ruin. We read from chapter 24 of Proverbs. I passed the field of a slugger.
So you know you're going through the countryside. You might look at different
parts of the countryside around you. You might see some beautiful crops. And then
you pass this field and it's the field of the lazy man, the lazy farmer. Behold
it's overgrown with thorns. The ground covered with nettles and the stone
walls were broken down. I looked at that farm he says. I thought about it and I
received instruction just by that picture of the broken down farm. What's the
instruction? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to
rest. Poverty comes on you like a robber and want like an armed man. A life of
weeds. A life where things are crumbling around us. That's the life of the lazy
person. Good things wasted because of a lack of effort. So what's the alternative
to a lazy life? Well the alternative is a productive and fruitful life. Now to be
human is to rest, okay? So it's not lazy to rest. God gives us rest. God delights
in our rest and God himself rests. And I love the idea of rest. I used to read
Inspector Montablano books, detective novels from Italy. And I loved him
because every day after lunch he was a policeman in Sicily. He would have a long
rich delicious lunch full of wine and seafood. And then he would go out and
find a quiet spot, sit comfortably in the warmth and rest in a sort of sleepy way
and just enjoy doing nothing. That seemed to me perfect. Lying in the grass in the
sun listening to the birds and the insects just being in the moment. So
there's nothing wrong with rest. Rest is a good gift from God. This is not a
sermon about how good it is to be busy. It's not a call to activism. We don't
believe in the creed that tells us that we earn the favor of God by being busy
people. We don't believe that we find our identity in what we do. And we don't
believe that we find our sense of worth and how much we run around. But we do
want to live productive lives that bear good fruit for God, for His glory. We do
want to live lives that are a rich blessing to our family, to our church, to
our community. So the fruitful life, the flourishing life, the productive life
that's the alternative that's put before us. It's not a hectic life
necessarily. The example we're given is the ant. Go to the ant, oh sluggard.
Consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she
prepares her bread and summer and gathers her food in harvest. So this simple
picture of the ant is simply this. Here's a creature that knows its purpose in
life and then just goes about and fulfills that purpose in a fairly
straightforward and simple way. The ant knows what it needs to do and then is
diligent in doing it. It is focused, it's determined. And so the wise and the
fruitful life is the life that knows that we have a purpose from God and so we
focus our life on living out that purpose. At a broad level, that purpose is to
love God and love others. So that's the broad focus of our existence. Every day
we say, how do I love God well today? How do I love my neighbor well today? How do
I love my family and my colleagues? All of us have particular gifting, particular
skills, particular experience, particular training. And these help to shape
your individual purpose in life, your particular purpose. And those gifts, that
training, the skills you've got, you want to put them to work in a way that's not
about just making money, earning a crust or getting by, but you want to use those
gifts and training in a way that says, by this I'm going to glorify God. By this
I'm going to be a blessing to others. So the alternative to a lazy life is to
steward your gifts well, your resources, your talent, your time, your opportunities.
You're going to not waste them, you're going to seize them, you're going to take
them and you're going to multiply them so that God gets glory. That's the fruitful
life, the productive life, finding your purpose, your calling, pursuing it in a
focused way. So what changes the lazy person? What motivates us to be productive?
Well the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The important thing in life and
every day in life is to see God first and before everything else. The first look
is always for God and the Christian needs to have a consciousness that all of life
is lived out before the face of God. He sees it all. So you're living your life
out before the face of God and as God has his gaze upon you, you begin to be more
conscious of how you want to live your life in a way that pleases him. Now that
in itself requires a change of desire sometimes because often we're really the
lazy person is about pleasing me, it's about pleasing ourselves and you want to
move them from a place about where you're pleasing yourself all the time
even when you're doing good things to pleasing God. And that change of desire
comes of course from seeing God in Jesus Christ. The thorny way is the way of the
sluggard. You know we read that in chapter 15 verse 9 that the sluggards
path is the way of thorns, overgrown with thorns. Now thorns in the Bible is a
really interesting idea because we first are introduced to thorns back in the
book of Genesis chapter 3 where when we sin against God and rebel against him
the beauty and goodness of this world is spoiled by thorns, by curse, by struggle,
by pain and by futility. But when we get to the New Testament and we read about
Jesus Christ we're told that as he died he is a crown of thorns placed and pounded
into his skull. So there's this idea then that Jesus takes the thorns, takes the
suffering, takes the futility of life, takes the pain, takes the disappointment,
takes the selfishness. He takes all those thorny things so that we can live a
new fruitful life. Jesus bore the curse. Jesus came to be a curse for us. He does
what is needed to serve others. He works hard for our salvation. He rescues us
from a life that is pointless and fruitless so that we can live a life
that is fruitful and full of purpose. By grace Jesus works hard to redeem you and
me from laziness to give us a life of new possibilities and new fruit. So we
have to look to Jesus to bring the change. Andy Farmer again said this, how
would I change? I couldn't just make a new commitment to self effort. I needed to
acknowledge the sin of sloth in the face of a loving God who had made me for his
purposes, not my own. I needed to turn my attention and affections away from
selfish escape toward the freedom Jesus Christ had purchased for me on the
cross. He has rescued me from the field of thorns and lost potential and placed
me in a new field to cultivate new fruit. So he said I need to repent, turn away
from selfish escape towards the freedom Jesus purchased. So I would do encourage
all of us tonight, repent over those parts of life in which we are lazy. The
places where you don't try, the places where you're lost in selfish escape,
repent. Repent means putting off sloth and repentance is a daily thing isn't it?
So I would encourage you in in everyday life repent in everyday ways. So after
you've had dinner with your family and you just want to slink away from the
table and leave everybody else to clear up, stay and do the dishes, repent of
your sloth. When you're at work and you're surfing the net, repent and get on
with your job. When you can't be bothered to talk into the neighbor as you pass
them on the street, repent and stop and say hello instead of saying I'm too tired
or I can't be bothered. Repent of sitting scrolling through your phone when
you should be talking to the person who's right in front of you. That's what
repentance for the lazy person looks like in everyday life. We put off those
lazy habits and we put on new good habits. We put on passion. We should be
passionately committed to what we're called by God to do in life. We should
be passionately committed to living out the gospel. We should be passionately
committed to hearing the word of God. We should be passionately committed to
warming our affections towards God. We should be passionately committed to
serving our community and our neighbors and our church and our city group and we
should be passionately committed to the care of our colleagues, our family and the
needy. The life of passion is the reverse or the antithesis of the lazy life.
So I really want to push you this evening to leave behind self-indulgence
and laziness and to embrace a life living passionately for God who deserves
all glory, honor and praise. I'm really pleased that there are lots of young men
here this evening and I feel I want to say something especially to you and I
have permission to say something especially to you because I'm a man as
well. So the way of a woman is a mystery to me in many levels but the way of the
bloke I get you okay. Quit messing about guys. Live a life of self-sacrifice and
passionate commitment to God. Give up escapism, give up frivolity, give up
frittering your life away. Stop avoiding the hard things in life. Stop taking the
easy road. Make the big decisions. Be open about your faith and evangelize your
unbelieving friends. Get involved in mission. Live your life well please
brothers. Do things that will count for eternity. Make a difference in our broken
world. You have one life. Don't waste it. Serve the poor, care for the broken and
stop entertaining yourself. Who is going to stop modern-day slavery? Who's going
to fight sex trafficking if it isn't young Christian men? If you neglect what
is good and great then it will be neglected all together and God is
calling you as young men to step up and live great lives for His glory. So I do
plead with you. Learn from the slugard. Don't let yourself fall into habits of
life that you will find really hard to change later on. Habits that are lazy,
self-indulgent. Kill those things now so that you can live a life that you will be
thankful for and it will bring great glory to God. Arise from your slumber
brothers and sisters. Go and serve God.