WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.179 Good evening, I am Neil, Neil McMillan, and I'm the Minister of one of the church 00:00:06.179 --> 00:00:16.539 plants out of St. Columba's, it's called Cornerstone. So we're going through the 00:00:16.539 --> 00:00:21.480 idea of sort of looking at life from the point of view of wisdom in the church, 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:29.120 different topics associated with wisdom and proverbs and so on, and really they've 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:35.359 chosen the preacher according to what your kind of strengths are. So I got 00:00:35.359 --> 00:00:42.400 sloth and boredom. I am a lazy man then. I was going to preach to you tonight 00:00:42.400 --> 00:00:51.960 about laziness and sloth, but I can't really be bothered. I am kind of asking 00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:57.320 myself what's the point, because if you're here tonight you're not lazy are 00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:02.719 you, because the lazy people stayed home and the hard-working people came to 00:01:02.719 --> 00:01:08.879 church twice on Sunday, so I don't know if we should really bother at all. And 00:01:08.879 --> 00:01:11.719 that's one of the things about laziness is that we generally tend to think that 00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:18.000 laziness is someone else's problem. A few of us would probably say that we were 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:23.439 lazy, and most of us are probably more obsessed with actually how busy we feel, 00:01:23.439 --> 00:01:28.319 and we live in a culture where people are always going on and on and on and on 00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:34.480 and on about I'm so busy, I'm so busy, you're so busy, we're all so busy, and 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:41.879 yet beneath that sense of busyness and sort of hectic activity, often there's a 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:49.799 lot of wasted time and futility in our lives. So a few weeks ago, Corey was 00:01:49.799 --> 00:01:55.719 preaching on wisdom, introducing this sermon series, and one of the things that 00:01:55.719 --> 00:02:02.479 he said is this, that a wise life is a life that is lived well in relation to God, 00:02:02.479 --> 00:02:09.719 in relation to others, and in relation to the world that we live in. Wisdom is a 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:14.840 life lived well in relation to God, in relation to others, in relation to the 00:02:14.840 --> 00:02:19.920 world that we live in. Wisdom is about learning to make good ethical decisions 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:27.480 in all the areas of life that the Bible doesn't lay down rules. So what job 00:02:27.480 --> 00:02:34.680 should I do? Who might I date? What time should I get up in the morning? How do I 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:40.840 help the poor? What do I do about human slavery? These aren't things that the 00:02:40.840 --> 00:02:45.800 Bible gives us prescriptive rules for, but they're important issues that we 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:52.240 need to make decisions about, and that's what wisdom is. And Jesus, of course, is 00:02:52.240 --> 00:03:02.759 wisdom personified. He's come to rescue us from a life of foolishness. If you want 00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:09.120 to know what a foolish person looks like in the book of Proverbs, then I think 00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:19.400 the Proverbs says to us, he or she looks like a lazy person. Lazyness epitomizes 00:03:19.400 --> 00:03:26.599 the foolish life. All the gifts, all the talents, all the time, all the resources 00:03:26.599 --> 00:03:34.520 that we have, laziness fritters those things away. The lazy life is a life of 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:44.719 wasted opportunity, of gifts left to rot, of procrastination. The lazy life is 00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:52.680 unfulfilled potential, lost joys, beauty and goodness undiscovered, all because we 00:03:52.680 --> 00:04:00.840 couldn't be bothered. It seemed too much effort. Didn't really seem worth it. We're 00:04:00.840 --> 00:04:07.439 lazy about lots of things in life. Often we're really lazy about our relationship 00:04:07.439 --> 00:04:16.560 towards God. Often we're really lazy about our relationships with family 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:22.600 members and colleagues. Often we're really lazy when it comes to caring for 00:04:22.600 --> 00:04:29.319 the world that God has put us in. We don't give any of those relationships the 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:38.719 time, the attention, the thought, the prayer and the effort that would mark a 00:04:38.719 --> 00:04:45.639 life lived well. The lazy person is the person who's going to look back on life 00:04:45.639 --> 00:04:52.600 and feel that they've wasted so much and then they're going to say, but who cares 00:04:52.600 --> 00:05:00.760 anyway. I read an article on laziness by somebody called Andy Farmer. He wrote 00:05:00.760 --> 00:05:06.400 about the laziness trap. He's a sovereign grace pastor in the United States. He said 00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:12.680 this laziness ensnares and controls people in habits that last for decades. 00:05:12.680 --> 00:05:19.520 Laziness lays waste to our potential. Quoting another writer, he says, 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:28.839 laziness just grows in people. It begins in cobwebs, it ends in iron chains. 00:05:28.839 --> 00:05:34.439 Laziness leaves us with the annoying pain of regret, a life of unfulfilled dreams, 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:41.319 failed plans and disappointed loved ones. The lazy person feels like a prisoner in 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:47.839 their own life. They're stuck but they don't know what to do about it. So we're 00:05:47.839 --> 00:05:51.919 going to just go through this idea of laziness, find out what it looks like, 00:05:51.919 --> 00:05:57.560 find out what it does to us, find out what the alternatives are and how we can 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:03.359 embrace them. So the first thing is what does the lazy life look like? Well in some 00:06:03.359 --> 00:06:08.120 of the passages that we read it was described as slothfulness. That's the 00:06:08.120 --> 00:06:17.239 title of the sermon, the sloth. And a tree sloth is a creature that has one gift 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:28.319 in life and that gift is the gift of sleep. Sleep is what the sloth does best. 00:06:28.319 --> 00:06:33.360 So when I read that I was kind of worried because if you asked me what I do best I 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:38.680 would say I am very good at sleeping. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. Just shut 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:46.960 my eyes off I go. Love a good nap. The sloth only stirs when it's hungry. The 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:53.439 craving for food becomes stronger than the craving for sleep. It's like you know 00:06:53.439 --> 00:06:57.919 laying down your remote or your control for your PlayStation for a few 00:06:57.919 --> 00:07:04.799 minutes so that you can order a pizza. That kind of deal. The main defense the 00:07:04.799 --> 00:07:11.879 sloth has against the hazards of life is inactivity. If I just stay still nothing 00:07:11.879 --> 00:07:16.560 can really go wrong. Lots of us are like that. We're kind of paralysed in life. We 00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:21.800 don't really attempt much because if we don't attempt much not much can go wrong. 00:07:21.800 --> 00:07:29.920 In the wild the sloth is often mistaken for a pile of dead leaves. Sloth is the 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:35.920 English, old English for slow. So the slothful person is the slow person so 00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.079 we've got the sluggard who's described in some of these passages in the book of 00:07:41.079 --> 00:07:48.800 Proverbs and the word sluggard comes guess what from the word slug. Think of 00:07:48.800 --> 00:07:59.120 your garden slug meandering its way across the path. It rests more than it 00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:08.279 moves. Most of the time it's just stationary. Slothfulness the sluggard is 00:08:08.279 --> 00:08:14.519 someone who is a habitual disinclination to exertion. Don't exert 00:08:14.519 --> 00:08:19.919 yourself. Don't put yourself out. Don't make any great effort. The sluggard is the 00:08:19.919 --> 00:08:27.079 slacker, the loafer, the idler, the indolent and the inert. The lazy person 00:08:27.079 --> 00:08:35.360 loves idleness. It's what they want and long for and look forward to. Lazy people 00:08:35.360 --> 00:08:42.159 avoid anything that feels like pressure and they put things off for as long as 00:08:42.159 --> 00:08:49.440 they can. Laziness is often marked by tardiness and laziness are always 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:55.639 looking for a moment of relaxation even when they're supposed to be working. The 00:08:55.639 --> 00:09:01.519 lazy person is constantly amusing and distracting themselves. Wait a minute I'll 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:08.039 just look that up. Check my Facebook. Text my friends. Facebook messaging. 00:09:08.039 --> 00:09:14.519 Catching up on the news for the fifth time that morning and all the time you're 00:09:14.519 --> 00:09:23.159 supposed to be working. Mark Twain said this. He said I have seen slower people 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:31.439 than I am and even quieter and more listless and lazier people than I am. 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:38.760 But they were dead. Okay. That's the way so many of us are. The lazy person is a 00:09:38.760 --> 00:09:46.400 bit of a joke. Listen to what the book of Proverbs says. The sluggard says there's 00:09:46.400 --> 00:09:51.560 a lion in the road. There's a lion in the streets. They're making any kind of wild 00:09:51.560 --> 00:09:58.800 excuse they can just not to bother. As a door turns in its hinges so a slugger 00:09:58.799 --> 00:10:07.479 turns on his bed. The sluggard buries his hand in his bag of chips but it wears 00:10:07.479 --> 00:10:15.000 him out to bring it back to his mouth. This is the life of the sluggard and 00:10:15.000 --> 00:10:22.719 it's probably to some extent a description of your life at some levels. 00:10:22.720 --> 00:10:29.320 Avoiding what needs to be done, making up excuses, always thinking about your own 00:10:29.320 --> 00:10:39.879 comfort. And the thing about this is that Proverbs doesn't just sort of laugh at 00:10:39.879 --> 00:10:50.120 the sluggard because laziness is folly and folly is sin. So we may think you know 00:10:50.120 --> 00:11:00.279 does it matter? And the Bible says yes it matters. Because the lazy person is living 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:06.799 without the fear of God. They're living a selfish life and a self-indulgent life 00:11:06.799 --> 00:11:14.320 instead of saying how do I love God well and how do I love my neighbor? The 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:20.920 lazy person doesn't want to give up their way of life or their comforts for 00:11:20.920 --> 00:11:27.640 anyone or anything. Andy Farmer who wrote that article in laziness said this, 00:11:27.640 --> 00:11:35.600 my definition of sloth, slothfulness is the determined bent of my heart that 00:11:35.600 --> 00:11:41.880 stubbornly insists on its own way. Do you get that? What's a lazy person doing? 00:11:41.879 --> 00:11:50.279 They're really saying I want my own way. When we say I prefer not to do that, that 00:11:50.279 --> 00:11:59.320 is the sloth's way of saying no to God. So many lazy people and so many of us 00:11:59.320 --> 00:12:06.399 when we're being lazy, what we say is not now. Later we put things off because 00:12:06.399 --> 00:12:11.120 they might disturb our comfort. And many of the things that we put off, many of 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:15.080 the things that we delay and procrastinate over are things that God has 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:22.879 said are really important and that He's calling us to do now, not later. So that's 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:27.000 what a lazy life looks like. What are the consequences of a lazy life? That's the 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:35.039 second thing. Well the lazy life leaves us bored and dissatisfied. In Proverbs 00:12:35.039 --> 00:12:43.519 chapter 13 it says this, the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the 00:12:43.519 --> 00:12:48.839 soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Craving but getting nothing. It's a life 00:12:48.839 --> 00:12:57.919 of dissatisfaction and bored. I'm fed up. I'm not happy. This sucks. That's the 00:12:57.919 --> 00:13:06.839 sluggard's life. Dissatisfied and empty. It's boring. Secondly, the second 00:13:06.839 --> 00:13:13.719 consequence is not fruitful. Proverbs 24, 20 verse 4 says this, the sluggard does 00:13:13.719 --> 00:13:18.919 not plow in the autumn, so he's not preparing. So when he seeks at harvest 00:13:18.919 --> 00:13:26.959 he will have nothing. It's a life that fails to bear real lasting fruit, a life 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:36.120 that doesn't really make any difference in the long term. Verse 34 of chapter 24 00:13:36.120 --> 00:13:44.519 says this, poverty comes on the sluggard like a bandit or like a robber. The 00:13:44.519 --> 00:13:51.560 poverty of scarce resources perhaps, but also the poverty of poor relationships. 00:13:51.559 --> 00:13:57.399 A poor relationship with God because we've not pursued it. A poor relationship 00:13:57.399 --> 00:14:02.639 with others because we're not learning to love them well and see their needs and 00:14:02.639 --> 00:14:07.399 serve them carefully. We don't make time to talk to the people that we really need 00:14:07.399 --> 00:14:12.359 to talk to. We don't make the effort to serve the people that we really ought to 00:14:12.359 --> 00:14:17.599 be serving. The sluggard is dull to the needs of others and just assume that 00:14:17.600 --> 00:14:23.759 everything's going to be okay. So the sluggard's life is boring, it's not 00:14:23.759 --> 00:14:31.879 fruitful. The sluggard, he makes life harder for himself, not easier. Being a 00:14:31.879 --> 00:14:37.240 sluggard or being lazy creates more problems than it solves. So in Proverbs 00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:43.680 chapter 15 verse 9 it says the way of the sluggard is like a path of thorns. 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:49.199 You know you think it's going to be the easy road but it's the hard road. The 00:14:49.199 --> 00:14:56.819 path of the upright is a level highway. So avoiding stuff just creates more 00:14:56.819 --> 00:15:04.359 stress in the long term, not less stress. And the sluggard, their life also 00:15:04.359 --> 00:15:10.879 creates problems for others. Chapter 10 verse 26, like vinegar to the teeth, smoke 00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:17.840 to the eyes so as the sluggard to them who sense him. The lazy person lets other 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:24.480 people down. The lazy person is a pain to the rest of us or the laziness of 00:15:24.480 --> 00:15:34.799 others. Laziness makes us a problem to our family or to our colleagues. And when 00:15:34.799 --> 00:15:41.120 we are lazy people just lower their expectations of us. It becomes easier just 00:15:41.120 --> 00:15:47.679 not to ask anything. People have to work round us. And the problem is we're always 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:55.479 people in community. What we don't do impacts others. So in the Proverbs it 00:15:55.479 --> 00:16:01.639 says he who gathers in summer is a prudent son. But he who sleeps in harvest 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:07.279 is a son who brings shame. You see that? The son who doesn't gather in the harvest 00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:16.319 he brings shame, poverty, scarcity on his father, his family. What you do, what you 00:16:16.319 --> 00:16:23.439 fail to do, what you can't be bothered doing, what you leave to later is always 00:16:23.439 --> 00:16:30.120 having ripple effects out into the lives of those around you. So if you're a 00:16:30.120 --> 00:16:36.399 husband your laziness impacts your wife. If you're a parent your laziness 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:43.240 laziness impacts your kids. If you're a child then your laziness impacts your 00:16:43.240 --> 00:16:49.200 parents. Laziness affects our colleagues, laziness affects others in the church. 00:16:49.200 --> 00:16:56.279 And so people have to compensate for us, work around us. Laziness is about 00:16:56.279 --> 00:17:05.920 neglect. It's about waste, disappointment and failure. The lazy life lets things go 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:12.200 to ruin. We read from chapter 24 of Proverbs. I passed the field of a slugger. 00:17:12.200 --> 00:17:16.000 So you know you're going through the countryside. You might look at different 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:21.359 parts of the countryside around you. You might see some beautiful crops. And then 00:17:21.359 --> 00:17:28.199 you pass this field and it's the field of the lazy man, the lazy farmer. Behold 00:17:28.199 --> 00:17:34.559 it's overgrown with thorns. The ground covered with nettles and the stone 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:43.519 walls were broken down. I looked at that farm he says. I thought about it and I 00:17:43.519 --> 00:17:49.199 received instruction just by that picture of the broken down farm. What's the 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:56.240 instruction? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to 00:17:56.240 --> 00:18:06.559 rest. Poverty comes on you like a robber and want like an armed man. A life of 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:14.440 weeds. A life where things are crumbling around us. That's the life of the lazy 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:23.200 person. Good things wasted because of a lack of effort. So what's the alternative 00:18:23.200 --> 00:18:33.360 to a lazy life? Well the alternative is a productive and fruitful life. Now to be 00:18:33.360 --> 00:18:42.120 human is to rest, okay? So it's not lazy to rest. God gives us rest. God delights 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:49.119 in our rest and God himself rests. And I love the idea of rest. I used to read 00:18:49.119 --> 00:18:56.039 Inspector Montablano books, detective novels from Italy. And I loved him 00:18:56.039 --> 00:19:02.279 because every day after lunch he was a policeman in Sicily. He would have a long 00:19:02.279 --> 00:19:07.359 rich delicious lunch full of wine and seafood. And then he would go out and 00:19:07.359 --> 00:19:13.319 find a quiet spot, sit comfortably in the warmth and rest in a sort of sleepy way 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:20.559 and just enjoy doing nothing. That seemed to me perfect. Lying in the grass in the 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:24.919 sun listening to the birds and the insects just being in the moment. So 00:19:24.919 --> 00:19:29.240 there's nothing wrong with rest. Rest is a good gift from God. This is not a 00:19:29.240 --> 00:19:35.639 sermon about how good it is to be busy. It's not a call to activism. We don't 00:19:35.640 --> 00:19:40.160 believe in the creed that tells us that we earn the favor of God by being busy 00:19:40.160 --> 00:19:47.440 people. We don't believe that we find our identity in what we do. And we don't 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:56.160 believe that we find our sense of worth and how much we run around. But we do 00:19:56.160 --> 00:20:04.560 want to live productive lives that bear good fruit for God, for His glory. We do 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:10.240 want to live lives that are a rich blessing to our family, to our church, to 00:20:10.240 --> 00:20:18.839 our community. So the fruitful life, the flourishing life, the productive life 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:23.599 that's the alternative that's put before us. It's not a hectic life 00:20:23.599 --> 00:20:31.440 necessarily. The example we're given is the ant. Go to the ant, oh sluggard. 00:20:31.440 --> 00:20:39.400 Consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she 00:20:39.400 --> 00:20:46.320 prepares her bread and summer and gathers her food in harvest. So this simple 00:20:46.320 --> 00:20:50.880 picture of the ant is simply this. Here's a creature that knows its purpose in 00:20:50.880 --> 00:20:56.080 life and then just goes about and fulfills that purpose in a fairly 00:20:56.079 --> 00:21:02.279 straightforward and simple way. The ant knows what it needs to do and then is 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:08.559 diligent in doing it. It is focused, it's determined. And so the wise and the 00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:17.039 fruitful life is the life that knows that we have a purpose from God and so we 00:21:17.039 --> 00:21:25.359 focus our life on living out that purpose. At a broad level, that purpose is to 00:21:25.359 --> 00:21:31.079 love God and love others. So that's the broad focus of our existence. Every day 00:21:31.079 --> 00:21:36.679 we say, how do I love God well today? How do I love my neighbor well today? How do 00:21:36.679 --> 00:21:44.359 I love my family and my colleagues? All of us have particular gifting, particular 00:21:44.359 --> 00:21:52.079 skills, particular experience, particular training. And these help to shape 00:21:52.079 --> 00:21:59.639 your individual purpose in life, your particular purpose. And those gifts, that 00:21:59.639 --> 00:22:06.199 training, the skills you've got, you want to put them to work in a way that's not 00:22:06.199 --> 00:22:11.439 about just making money, earning a crust or getting by, but you want to use those 00:22:11.439 --> 00:22:18.439 gifts and training in a way that says, by this I'm going to glorify God. By this 00:22:18.440 --> 00:22:23.680 I'm going to be a blessing to others. So the alternative to a lazy life is to 00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:30.080 steward your gifts well, your resources, your talent, your time, your opportunities. 00:22:30.080 --> 00:22:35.080 You're going to not waste them, you're going to seize them, you're going to take 00:22:35.080 --> 00:22:43.279 them and you're going to multiply them so that God gets glory. That's the fruitful 00:22:43.279 --> 00:22:52.039 life, the productive life, finding your purpose, your calling, pursuing it in a 00:22:52.039 --> 00:23:01.279 focused way. So what changes the lazy person? What motivates us to be productive? 00:23:02.319 --> 00:23:08.359 Well the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. The important thing in life and 00:23:08.359 --> 00:23:14.599 every day in life is to see God first and before everything else. The first look 00:23:14.599 --> 00:23:21.799 is always for God and the Christian needs to have a consciousness that all of life 00:23:21.799 --> 00:23:29.519 is lived out before the face of God. He sees it all. So you're living your life 00:23:29.519 --> 00:23:40.359 out before the face of God and as God has his gaze upon you, you begin to be more 00:23:40.359 --> 00:23:47.599 conscious of how you want to live your life in a way that pleases him. Now that 00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:53.440 in itself requires a change of desire sometimes because often we're really the 00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:58.839 lazy person is about pleasing me, it's about pleasing ourselves and you want to 00:23:58.839 --> 00:24:03.399 move them from a place about where you're pleasing yourself all the time 00:24:03.399 --> 00:24:11.279 even when you're doing good things to pleasing God. And that change of desire 00:24:11.279 --> 00:24:19.439 comes of course from seeing God in Jesus Christ. The thorny way is the way of the 00:24:19.439 --> 00:24:27.439 sluggard. You know we read that in chapter 15 verse 9 that the sluggards 00:24:27.440 --> 00:24:37.440 path is the way of thorns, overgrown with thorns. Now thorns in the Bible is a 00:24:37.440 --> 00:24:43.440 really interesting idea because we first are introduced to thorns back in the 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:48.840 book of Genesis chapter 3 where when we sin against God and rebel against him 00:24:48.840 --> 00:24:53.680 the beauty and goodness of this world is spoiled by thorns, by curse, by struggle, 00:24:53.680 --> 00:25:01.400 by pain and by futility. But when we get to the New Testament and we read about 00:25:01.400 --> 00:25:08.560 Jesus Christ we're told that as he died he is a crown of thorns placed and pounded 00:25:08.560 --> 00:25:19.960 into his skull. So there's this idea then that Jesus takes the thorns, takes the 00:25:19.960 --> 00:25:25.279 suffering, takes the futility of life, takes the pain, takes the disappointment, 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:30.120 takes the selfishness. He takes all those thorny things so that we can live a 00:25:30.120 --> 00:25:42.039 new fruitful life. Jesus bore the curse. Jesus came to be a curse for us. He does 00:25:42.039 --> 00:25:50.519 what is needed to serve others. He works hard for our salvation. He rescues us 00:25:50.519 --> 00:25:55.799 from a life that is pointless and fruitless so that we can live a life 00:25:55.799 --> 00:26:04.680 that is fruitful and full of purpose. By grace Jesus works hard to redeem you and 00:26:04.680 --> 00:26:13.000 me from laziness to give us a life of new possibilities and new fruit. So we 00:26:13.000 --> 00:26:18.279 have to look to Jesus to bring the change. Andy Farmer again said this, how 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:26.960 would I change? I couldn't just make a new commitment to self effort. I needed to 00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:32.720 acknowledge the sin of sloth in the face of a loving God who had made me for his 00:26:32.720 --> 00:26:38.680 purposes, not my own. I needed to turn my attention and affections away from 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:44.839 selfish escape toward the freedom Jesus Christ had purchased for me on the 00:26:44.839 --> 00:26:51.319 cross. He has rescued me from the field of thorns and lost potential and placed 00:26:51.319 --> 00:27:01.600 me in a new field to cultivate new fruit. So he said I need to repent, turn away 00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:09.199 from selfish escape towards the freedom Jesus purchased. So I would do encourage 00:27:09.199 --> 00:27:19.359 all of us tonight, repent over those parts of life in which we are lazy. The 00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:25.319 places where you don't try, the places where you're lost in selfish escape, 00:27:25.319 --> 00:27:33.079 repent. Repent means putting off sloth and repentance is a daily thing isn't it? 00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:42.960 So I would encourage you in in everyday life repent in everyday ways. So after 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:46.079 you've had dinner with your family and you just want to slink away from the 00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:51.799 table and leave everybody else to clear up, stay and do the dishes, repent of 00:27:51.799 --> 00:27:59.759 your sloth. When you're at work and you're surfing the net, repent and get on 00:27:59.759 --> 00:28:05.200 with your job. When you can't be bothered to talk into the neighbor as you pass 00:28:05.200 --> 00:28:14.079 them on the street, repent and stop and say hello instead of saying I'm too tired 00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:22.839 or I can't be bothered. Repent of sitting scrolling through your phone when 00:28:22.839 --> 00:28:28.119 you should be talking to the person who's right in front of you. That's what 00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:36.279 repentance for the lazy person looks like in everyday life. We put off those 00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:46.200 lazy habits and we put on new good habits. We put on passion. We should be 00:28:46.200 --> 00:28:53.319 passionately committed to what we're called by God to do in life. We should 00:28:53.319 --> 00:28:57.759 be passionately committed to living out the gospel. We should be passionately 00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:03.079 committed to hearing the word of God. We should be passionately committed to 00:29:03.079 --> 00:29:09.039 warming our affections towards God. We should be passionately committed to 00:29:09.039 --> 00:29:16.960 serving our community and our neighbors and our church and our city group and we 00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:23.319 should be passionately committed to the care of our colleagues, our family and the 00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:33.039 needy. The life of passion is the reverse or the antithesis of the lazy life. 00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:39.559 So I really want to push you this evening to leave behind self-indulgence 00:29:39.559 --> 00:29:48.879 and laziness and to embrace a life living passionately for God who deserves 00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:56.800 all glory, honor and praise. I'm really pleased that there are lots of young men 00:29:56.800 --> 00:30:02.760 here this evening and I feel I want to say something especially to you and I 00:30:02.760 --> 00:30:05.640 have permission to say something especially to you because I'm a man as 00:30:05.640 --> 00:30:11.120 well. So the way of a woman is a mystery to me in many levels but the way of the 00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:21.319 bloke I get you okay. Quit messing about guys. Live a life of self-sacrifice and 00:30:21.319 --> 00:30:31.639 passionate commitment to God. Give up escapism, give up frivolity, give up 00:30:31.639 --> 00:30:38.599 frittering your life away. Stop avoiding the hard things in life. Stop taking the 00:30:38.599 --> 00:30:46.839 easy road. Make the big decisions. Be open about your faith and evangelize your 00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:54.159 unbelieving friends. Get involved in mission. Live your life well please 00:30:54.159 --> 00:31:02.559 brothers. Do things that will count for eternity. Make a difference in our broken 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:11.039 world. You have one life. Don't waste it. Serve the poor, care for the broken and 00:31:11.039 --> 00:31:19.559 stop entertaining yourself. Who is going to stop modern-day slavery? Who's going 00:31:19.559 --> 00:31:27.359 to fight sex trafficking if it isn't young Christian men? If you neglect what 00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:34.199 is good and great then it will be neglected all together and God is 00:31:34.199 --> 00:31:43.679 calling you as young men to step up and live great lives for His glory. So I do 00:31:43.679 --> 00:31:50.039 plead with you. Learn from the slugard. Don't let yourself fall into habits of 00:31:50.039 --> 00:31:56.000 life that you will find really hard to change later on. Habits that are lazy, 00:31:56.000 --> 00:32:03.640 self-indulgent. Kill those things now so that you can live a life that you will be 00:32:03.640 --> 00:32:10.720 thankful for and it will bring great glory to God. Arise from your slumber 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:27.240 brothers and sisters. Go and serve God.