Work Wisely, Reject Laziness

Date: March 15, 2026
Series: Proverbs - Wisdom For Life
Passage: Proverbs 6:6-11
Preacher: Pastor Jeff Griffin

Transcript

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Good morning, church. I greet you in the mighty name of our risen Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you, Father, that you have saved us, dear God. You have called us, dear God. You have formed us and shaped us. You have made us in your image. And so, Father, we are so thankful for all your many blessings. And now we pray, Lord, that in this time, as the word is preached, dear God, that it doesn't return unto you, boy. Father, you know exactly what we need to hear on this day. We pray, Father, for open ears and hearts to receive your word, that it does not fall on stony ground. We pray for saved souls in this moment, God. As something is said on this day. To where some may come and say, What must I do to be saved? Father, we thank you, we praise you, and we ask these blessings in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. As we continue in our series through Proverbs, wisdom for life, we're going to be in chapter six. And if you can turn over to chapter six with me. Chapter six, verses six through eleven is where we'll be. If you don't have a Bible, just look in the row in front of you. There should be a Bible there for you to grab and to read and to follow along with us. 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? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. Amen. It's God's word for God's people. You maybe see that. Work is a big feature in most of our lives. Many go off to work in factories, some go off to work in warehouses, some go off to work in offices, some go off to work in the sports field, some go off to work in ministry, classrooms, and many more occupations. And then others are at home, taking care of the home and taking care of children. And then others have there's an increased number in part-time jobs where people are having more and having to have more than just one job. And work part-time shifts and drive Uber and Lyft. Most of us, most people, work a full-time employment, which is about 40 hours a week. I don't know. Sometimes it feels like it's about 60, if not more. Amen. And so some of us work much longer than that, and that's at least about a third of our waking hours that we're spending working. And when you add in the other work we do, like household chores, we still have household chores these days, right? You add all that in, then we probably spend half of our time working. The Bible, when you look at it, it's considers work to be fundamentally good. Going all the way back to Genesis, God Himself, who was the first worker, whom Genesis tells us created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Work has been and still is ordained by God. It's part of the created order. God placed Adam and Eve in the garden to keep it. And this is before the fall. This is before everything got all messed up. Work is the way God intended for us to live and function. And so work has always been inherently good, but never intended to be a curse. It's only after mankind decided to go his own way. It's only after man decided to sin against a holy God. It's only after mankind decided to do things as he wanted to do it, and it broke the intended design of God. And so when that happened, it made work frustrating. It made it labor intensive. It made it hard and long. Some of us would even say it's a necessary evil. That it's an obstacle to our lives. In other words, because of work, we can't live the way of the life we want to live. And there's even anti-workers, about 1.5, 1.4 million of them who just refuse to work and have the attitude that they should not work. Perhaps some of you may be sitting in here today. I pray that after this message that you have a change of heart. But that's the time we're living in now. That's the time we're living in now. It's that time where everybody is trying to find a way to make more and work less. Nevertheless, it remains God's design for human life. Anything other than what that goes against the grain of what God intended is ungodly. Wisdom teaches that there's an order to the world that God created so that it works in a certain way. And that order is to work wisely, reject laziness so that poverty won't be your house guest. Poverty would not exist today if it was not for the fall. And so technically, this is not how it was intended to be. It's only when sin came into the picture that now we have to deal with poor, suffering, poverty, and those things that come along with sin. And so I just want to real quick just address the elephant in the room. In 1964, President Johnson issued the war on poverty to deal with high poverty rates. Initiatives were aimed at eliminating poverty. Yet, poverty still exists. Social Security, the largest anti-poverty program in the U.S. today, yet poverty still exists. Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP has been given by the government to remedy poverty. But yet poverty still exists. Housing assistance, grant programs, tax credits, and many more exist to deal with today's issue of poverty, but poverty still exists. Conversely, some would even argue that these current systems have created poverty traps, whereby you lose benefits if you earn slightly more money. Poverty still exists. And some even would argue that these programs have made it worse, that people have become lazy, unwilling to work, and that it's created a dependency of people who are physically, emotionally, and capable to work who just won't do it. After all, why work when you can get it for free? And it's not to meant to throw shade on anyone. Because I was in college, my college tuition was paid for by my parents, and I went to college with the attitude that as long as I'm in school, I'm not working. Shame on me, exactly. And on top of that, we found out that there was a way that I can get$325 a chick a check coming to my house every month, along with$250 worth of food stamps. Now for a college student, that's a pretty empty note. Yes, it's a pretty good, it's a pretty good chunk of change for a college student. Did I need it? No, absolutely not. Because it was free and it was offered to me, I took it. So shame on me. Then you have the worldwide efforts. Investing in agricultural technology and education and health, all being employed to fight poverty, but yet poverty still exists. Nowhere in the Bible is the government the cure for poverty. According to the Bible, the cure for poverty is to work as God intended. That's the timeless truth of this text. Proverbs 6 through 11 is a rebuke to the lazy person. It tells us that our God-given responsibility is to work and not be lazy. That's the text, church. That if you you and I work as God intended us to work, we'll be blessed and we'll be able to be a blessing to others. So how does God intend us intend for us to work? The short answer to that is to work as Jesus worked. And so I want us to see three commitments that you and I need to make to work as God has intended. The first commitment is this commit to working wisely. Verses six through eight says, Go to the ant, O slugger, 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. We were called in the beginning to have dominion over the creeping things. Now, in our fallen condition, our lack of dominion over our lives, God has called us now to look at the smallest things. And so he says, go to the ant. And church, this is an indictment that proves that we need Jesus. I mean, think about that. If the Bible is pointing us to look at an ant so that we understand this concept of what it means to work, it just proves that we need Jesus. We need to be made to be like him through the gospel. Made into the image of the one who said it is finished. And so verse 6 begins with a command to do something. Go, consider, and be. Those three verbs in that text is telling us, and Solomon is telling, the slugger. We don't know exactly who he's talking to, we don't know exactly who he's referring to. It could be his son, it could be someone else, but, and we'll get down to that in just a little bit later. But what he's do what he's doing in verse 6 is he's issuing a command to look at the ant. And this is not a command to travel to an ant hill and to observe an ant and see all that they're doing and they're moving back and forth. That's not what this is. This is an imitation for us to examine the ant's behavior and extract wisdom from it. Solomon is saying, watch the ants work and learn for learn from them. And so he points out to his son to look at one of the smallest yet visible creatures in creation, the ant. Why? Because ants are known for their hard work. Always working diligently. Ants does not need anyone to tell them what to do. Look at verse 7. It said, without having any chief, officer, or ruler. Ants work hard and they don't need a supervisor. They don't need a captain. They don't need a coach. They don't need anyone to tell them what to do. And guess what? They don't need meetings. They don't need to bring a bring about come together and be like, hey, let's let's meet on how we're gonna feed ourselves. No, ants have something on the inside that causes them to work hard, diligently. This diligence comes from within. And so what is the ant doing? Look at verse 8. She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. They have an instinct about them that looks ahead. They have an instinct about them that says, we're gonna prepare now when the harvest is right, in the summer, when everything is right, we're gonna make sure that we prepare so that we can store something up for the rainy season. Church walking in wisdom means taking the initiative to work hard. When there's work to do, the ants get after it. But Solomon introduces us to another character in verse six. And in this text, he introduces us to the sluggard. Unlike the ant, this is not an insect, this is not a creature. Proverbs characterizes the sluggard as the lazy person. The sluggard sleeps excessively. The sluggard stays in bed too long. And when the sluggard does finally get up, the sluggard does as less as possible, unwilling to take decisive action to start anything. Overall, Proverbs portrays the sluggard as somewhat of a tragic joke whose laziness leads to poverty and helplessness. And so Solomon is saying here, rather it be to the son or us, whomever he's referring to, he's saying, don't be that person. In other words, he's saying, imitate the end. There's much to learn from this that Solomon is teaching us today. Solomon is calling us to have a strong work ethic that allows us to meet our family needs. The problem for us is that when we read a verse like this, when we read a chapter like this and some verses like this, we have a tendency to think that you know what? That's not me. I'm not lazy. If I was to ask you if you were lazy, I don't think anybody would raise their hand. And so thank you, my sister, for your for your transparency and your honesty. Listen, I'm lazy too. So you and so we in there together. But oftentimes we look at the family member. We look at the friend, we look at the the neighbor sitting on their couch doing nothing, and their only motivation is to get up and go. To the refrigerator to get something to eat. And so perhaps you're thinking about the person who can't seem to keep a job, always with an excuse of why not to work, or why they can't work. And so consequently, it's easy for us to say that I don't struggle with laziness. But I believe that this is a struggle, a real struggle for all of us. Some struggle with wanting your needs met without having to work for them. There's people today who know how to milk the system. There's people today, church, who know how to go from church to church to church, to system to system to system, and have it timed on their calendar, know exactly when to go and where to go. Because they know how to play the system. Some have the problem of not prioritizing what needs to be done over what they need to do. For some, laziness is not a lack of activity, it's just doing the wrong kind of activity. And so when that happens, we easily allow ourselves to get sidetracked. And just say, man, if I'm rolling down your street, if I'm coming down your street right now. Some people just constantly procrastinate at work and play games on their phones. When you should be working. And you can tell when that person is doing that. And when you talk, when you call them to cut to customer service, you can tell because they ain't listened to anything that you said. Ouch. I was one of them. Then there's some who just refuse to be faithful to their God-given responsibility. They don't take care of their family and they avoid paying child support. Or you may be claiming felonious disability to get out of work. Church, that's not just wrong. It's ungodly. So what's the proper response? Because all of us, when you think about it, all of us have some type of laziness within us. So what's the proper response? The proper response is simply this look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. I mean, there's nothing wrong with looking at an ant. And I and I and I understand what the Bible is teaching us. There's nothing wrong with looking at an ant, but God wants us to look to Jesus. Our hope is found in Jesus Christ. In John 4.34, Jesus said, My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. In John 17, 4, Jesus said, I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. What was that work? During Holy Week, Jesus worked six days instead on this on the sixth day when he accomplished accomplished all that he had to do, he said, It is finished. N. T. Wright poetically writes this on the seventh day, God rested in the darkness of the tomb, having finished on the sixth day all his work of joy and doom. Church, he did this to provide for us what we cannot provide for ourselves. And so with all of our shortcomings, with all of our issues that we had, with all of our laziness, Jesus still went to the cross. Amen? And so look to Jesus. That's what it means to work wisely. But then, secondly, to work as God has intended us to work, we have to commit to rejecting laziness. There are many reasons that people are lazy today. I mean, let's just be real about it. There's many reasons, and it doesn't have to be just our own shortcomings. There's mental issues that we deal with. There's fear, there's burnout, there's just having a lack of purpose in some cases. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? How long? And when? These two rhetorical questions are meant to hold the sluggard accountable. Now, if you like me, I love some sleep. I can take a nap in the middle of the day. But when he asks the question, how long, oftentimes in the Bible it's meant as a phrase that generally implies that something bad has been going on for a long time. Proverbs 122 says, How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight and their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? So he's not saying to the sluggard, he's not saying to the to this to the lazy person that that or to any of us, he's not saying that not to sleep. That's not what Solomon is saying. In fact, sleep is given to us by God. See, when gathering crops at harvest time, workers were required to work long hours so that they don't leave any grain in the field. So Solomon is saying, listen, the sluggard is a picture here as someone sleeping while there's work to be done. The lazy person doesn't need any more sleep. Sleep is a blessing from the Lord. And for those of us who work hard, that's a reward. To get proper rest, it's not only just a reward, but it's needed. But for someone who's trapped in habitual idleness, and someone who is continually just being lazy just because they love sleep too much. Because you can love sleep too much. Solomon sees this as being problematic. And so he says, How long? And then he says, When will you arise from your sleep? See, the sluggard, he doesn't get out of bed on time for work. Perhaps he was indulging in something last night that he shouldn't have been indulging in. Kept him up late at night. He knows he should get up, but as Proverbs 26, 14 tells us, as a door turns on his hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. And when he finally gets up, he does as little as possible. And so I want us to see the contrast here. The ant works hard when there's work to be done. And the lazy person sleeps while there's work to be done. I don't know how you run your household. I know growing up on Saturdays, we didn't sleep in. We didn't sleep in, and Eugene had us up early with bucket in hand, Murphy's oil soap. And we knew what time it was. Today, church, there's work to be done. And so this here is a rebuke for idleness. This ethic of hard work still needs to be cultivated today. Our children need to be taught at an early age by word and example that diligence is a virtue and laziness is a sin. The greatest motivation for the Christian should come from a desire to honor Christ. And this is not just limited to work as it relates to our vocation, but also our non-vocation. When there's work to be done, get after it, high schooler. College student, when there's work to be done, get after it. Office worker. When there's work to be done, get after it. The working world, the workplace should look to Christians. They should want Christians in their job, in their job. If we are doing it to honor Christ, they should be knocking down our doors, trying to find how I can get another Christian in my workplace. And if you are stay-at-home mom, your work is just as important. All of our work needs to be done in a way that honors God. All of our work, no matter what it is, work in the church, work in the home, and work in the workplace, in the world. It needs to be done in a way to honor Christ. We need help in our production department. We need help, we need van drivers. We need folks to work in, we need help in work in kids' ministry. We need teachers, we need Bible teachers. We need teachers in our student ministry. There's work to be done. So my question is this. If you haven't found a place to serve Christ, two questions for you. How long and when. So God has intended us to commit to working wisely, He's intended us to commit to rejecting laziness. But then lastly, we are to commit to honoring Jesus Christ. Verse 10 says, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. Notice the sarcasm here and the progression. Solomon says, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands. What starts off as something little has now become a lifestyle. And that's what Solomon is dealing with when he says that. Listen, it may have started off as small. It may have started off as you having a fake cough and calling into your job. But then that fake cough is now turned into a full-blown flu that you know you just trying to get out of work. And it's become a lifestyle, it's become perpetual, it's become a habit, it's become your way of life. And if that's become your way of life, and as Solomon dealt with this in the text, if the sluggard does not reject laziness, look at verse 11. Poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. A lazy person lies in his or her bed while want, personified as a robber, comes like a prowler in the night, suddenly and forcefully catching the sluggard off guard. Now, church, there's many reasons why poverty exists today. Economic conditions, people get laid off of work, job layoffs, exploitation, marginalization, sickness. But the Bible speaks of one of the reasons here in this text and its laziness. It shows us that poverty is a product of lazy decisions over a period of time. But the realization of it is sudden. You don't see it coming. You weren't looking for it. The only thing you were looking to do is to get out of work, willing to find any excuse to get out of work, even if it's outlandish. Proverbs 22, 13 says, makes light of this. He says, it says, the sluggard says, There is a lion outside. I shall be killed in the streets. That's in the Bible. Don't use that. That's in the Bible. The Bible said it's a lion outside. Don't use that. Don't use that. Don't use that. Don't use that. But there's many reasons that poverty exists. And we know that. But God wants us to have a work ethic church. He wants us to have a work ethic. And he lets us know in this text that he has something greater for us. Proverbs 24, 12, 12, 24 says this Solomon tells his son, the hand of the diligent will rule while the slaughter will be will be put to forced labor. If you work hard, there's a good chance that a promotion could come from it. Oftentimes people use a text like this as a get rich to promote prosperity, gospel, but that's not what this text is teaching. Colossians 3 23 24 says this whether you do, 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. John 6.27 tells us this do not work for food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which is the Son of Man, will the Son of Man will give you, for on him God the Father has set his seal. Our premier example, Church, is Jesus. So we ought to commit to working wisely, commit to rejecting laziness, and commit to honoring Jesus Christ. So what then is the only cure for poverty in the Bible? Jesus. Jesus is the cure for poverty in this life. Matthew 6, 33 says this, but first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. And Jesus is the cure for poverty in the life to come. Romans 8, 17 and 18 says this, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the suffering of this present time, poverty, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. If you are a child of God, you are an heir of God and you are joint heirs with Christ. Amen? Amen. And so we've been invited to work. We've been invited to be different. Everything about our work ethic should say that we belong to the Most High God. And so I would like to think that we are at least as wise as the Ann. At least. At the bare minimum, let us be as wise as the Ann is. So I just got a few questions for you as we close. First question is this Have I made any preparations for the future? Am I saved and ready to meet Jesus? If you can answer that with a resounding yes, then you're okay. If you got some doubt, we want to be here, we want to talk with you, we want to get that question answered. The Bible says, These things I have written unto you so that you may know that you have eternal life. And so don't leave here today without wondering or guessing or Or make or just not ensure that you have eternal life. Find out today before you leave these doors. And then the next question is: Have I gathered all the provisions I need to walk for God today? Prayer, Bible, fellowship with God and believers. And the third question is, Am I in fellowship with the rest of the members of this church? That's a big one. If you out of fellowship with anyone in this church, don't leave here today without getting it right. Am I doing the job Jesus saved me to do? Amen. Amen. That's right. Am I doing the job Jesus saves me to do? Are you? Think about that. We have events coming up in the life of our church. And as Pastor Sammy mentioned in past weeks, we're a missional church. There's always something for you to do here at Idaho. To serve Jesus. Knowing the darkness is swiftly approaching. Verse 11 says, poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. Don't give poverty a seat at your table. Work for Jesus. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you for the truth of your word. We thank you, Father, for challenging us on this day. Helping us to know, God, that laziness is ungodly. So, Father, we ask, Lord, that you give us a work ethic that pleases you. Father, I admit that there's so many areas in my own life, dear God, that I need to bring before you in this moment. So I pray for anyone here today who realizes, dear God, that they can't live this life on their own and they want to turn their life over to Jesus. We pray for them in this moment, oh God. That you give them the courage, you give them the strength, Father, you give them power to come forward and to turn their lives over to you, Father, knowing that you can do more with their life in your hands than they can do with it in theirs. So, Father, we thank you for the gift of salvation. And we praise you. And we ask, Lord, that you help us to live out the words of this text. Help us to work hard, help us to honor you, help us to not be lazy, help us to teach our kids and our young ones what it means to work and to honor you, God. Lord, we thank you and we praise you. We ask these blessings in Christ Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. May we all stand. As we get ready to sing and we give the invitation, I pray that you think about those five questions that was on the screen. And that all of us look internally at our own lives and ask Jesus to examine what's on the inside. And so as we sing, we encourage you to come forward to pray. We'll be here to pray with you. If you want to accept Jesus Christ, we would love to have you to come forward. We want to talk with you and pray with you. If you have something going on in your own life, that includes poverty. We want to pray for that as well. And so as we sing, we invite you to come forward. If you want to come and join our church and come along with some Christians, so we can come alongside you and walk with you in your faith. We would love to do that as well.