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How's everybody doing? Come on, that was pretty lazy. Come on, how's everybody doing? Come on, you can't listen to a sermon on laziness and talk like that. All right. Well, my name is Matt Altman, and uh just so you're kind of aware of who I am, not that it's all that important. I'm not a pastor, I'm not a paid staff member, I'm uh a former elder. We call them non-sitting elders. So I'm in a what we call the rest year. I've served a term on the elder board for a season, and now my family and I are benefiting from the blessing of having a little bit of rest in that area. But I still get the opportunity to teach every now and then, and I'm thankful for that. I uh I really love God's word, and I love to just open it up and I love to share uh with anybody who's willing to listen. And since you're here and sitting in a seat, I'm assuming that applies to you. So uh we're gonna tackle this issue of laziness today. Um but before we do that, I want to kind of set the tone for the series that we've been in. We've been talking about a way out, and this comes out of a verse that's in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. You don't have to open there, uh, but it's on the screen right here. And it just says this no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation, he will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it. Just like Alex was saying earlier, the last thing we need to do is walk out of here today with some seven tips to be a better us and how we fix laziness and kind of be done in that area and move on to the next thing. What we need is the gospel, what we need is Jesus, and what we need is to see that God is our way of escape when it comes to all sin in our life. A couple of notes that I want to make about this verse is simply this that God is the one who is described as faithful. Okay, so he's the one who we're looking to. We're not looking to ourselves, we're not looking to the world, we're not looking to the culture, we're looking to him for that way out. And we're gonna talk about that at the end of the sermon. So we're gonna do three things today, all right? And just so you're aware, I'm a school teacher by trade, so I do this a lot with my students. I'm like, all right, here's the goal. We got three things. All right, we got kind of a warm-up, which is gonna be us making a definition of laziness according to scripture. Then we've got the meat of the lesson, which is gonna be where we peel back how laziness actually affects our lives. And then we have what we call the closing or the reflection where we're gonna look at the way out. The last thing it would be terrible if I just came in here and kind of beat us all down with how bad we are at laziness and then said, now go try harder on your own. The goal is that we'll see that Jesus is the way out and practically what that looks like. So, seven deadly sins, they're all deadly, all sin is deadly. But when you look at the list of the seven deadly sins, you don't typically think about laziness as being that significant, right? I mean, the big ones are pride that we talked about first, lust and anger, those two are pretty big. You know, we tend to categorize them, and laziness is probably something that we as a people don't tend to think we struggle with. We probably don't take it very seriously, we probably don't consider it very sinful or even deadly. But again, as we open the word today, I hope that our hearts will be changed in the way we view this area because it's a significant issue, and it's not uh something we need to play around with. It's not a one-dimensional issue either. So if you're thinking this is all about your earthly job today, it's not just about that, okay? I I kind of picture laziness as like this monster that has all of these tentacles that it just can reach into so many different areas of our life. And a lot of times we don't even know that it's happening. So let me tell you a story. If you were in my classroom and uh at some point I teach math and I would stop and be like, all right, y'all want to hear a story? And the answer is always yes, Mr. Altman, we want to hear a story. Can you make it last all class period? And I'm like, well, no, it can't be all class period, but but I usually tell stories as I teach, and so uh I was lazy when I was a kid. And I don't say this part braggingly that you would think that doesn't Matt's not lazy. Well, I wasn't always the way I am now. I tend to kind of pride myself on being a hard worker as being the guy that you can go to to get things done, and you know, at school if something's broken or something needs to happen, or a hard conversation needs to happen, there's a few of us that they say, hey, you know, you can go talk to Altman, he can help you with that. But when I was a kid, I was lazy and I avoided work pretty much all the time. Okay? Um I had two older brothers, one's six years older, Ben, and the uh Josh is two years older, and we lived out on the country uh in 25 acres, and it was what you would think is a boys' you know playground. And we played a lot, but when it came time to work, I mean I always tried to find ways to get out of that, okay? Unless there was money attached to it. Right? Nothing like a little motivation to kind of get me thinking, like, okay, we're gonna get paid, so maybe I'll do a little bit better. So we had a neighbor down the street, his name was Mr. Williams, and Mr. Williams called my dad and said, Hey, bud, that's my dad's name, bud, and he said, uh, I've got some work that that I need done, and you've got three strong boys that you know look like they could probably use a little extra money. Would you bring them down and and you know, this weekend we'll put them to work? Sure, sounds good to me, my dad says. So we hop up in the truck and we drive down there and we work our day's work, and my dad comes back and Mr. Williams says, I'd like to talk to you for a minute, bud. He said, You know, I'm real happy with everything. The boys did a good job, and we we accomplished a lot today, and they they got you know all my to-do list done. But I was wondering if I could I could talk to you a little bit about Matthew. And I'm sitting right there, by the way. He says, I'd like to pay him less than his two brothers. And I'm thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't like where this is going. He said, Yeah, you know, he he didn't just he just didn't do as much work as the other guys did. He pretty much stood around and talked the whole time. Man, let's just can when the can this be over already, you know? So I'd like to pay Ben and Josh more money if that's okay with you. And my dad's a pretty old-fashioned country guy, and of course he didn't have any problem with that. So he's like, sure, you know, whatever you think is fair, you can pay him nothing if you're I'm like, Dad, stop. Like, he's like, whatever it works for you. And in that moment, I walked away slided, kind of thinking, like, that's not that's not fair. And yet I failed to see the error of my own ways in the midst of my laziness. Now, fast forward to now, I still do the talking a lot, but I've learned how to work and talk at the same time. And uh so hopefully I'm not considered as lazy as I used to be. Um, so I want us to take a look at a passage that is gonna be humorous at front, okay? Um, but it's also gonna dig in to help us define what laziness is. If you've got your Bible this morning, I want you to turn to the book of Proverbs, which is pretty much right in the middle. You'll run into Psalms and then turn to the right and you'll run into Proverbs, okay? Proverbs chapter 26. We're gonna read four verses. It's verses 13 through 16. And there's a character here that's called the slacker. Sometimes he's called the sluggard or the sloth, okay, depending on your translation, but it means the same thing, all right? So the slacker says, There's a lion in the road, a lion in the public square. A door turns on its hinges, and a slacker on his bed. The slacker buries his hand in the bowl, he is too weary to bring it to his mouth. In his own eyes, a slacker is wiser than seven men who can answer sensibly. Now, as we unpack these pictures here, I hopefully you laugh a little bit because you think that's kind of ridiculous, some of the pictures that they give us. But the Bible uses humor for two reasons a lot of times. Number one, we typically remember humorous pictures, right? Funny scenes in a movie or something we read in a book or something we hear here, we're like, wait a minute, he he's like a door that swings on his hinges and he's laying in his bed. That's kind of funny. You know, so we tend to, it sticks with us, but what's also brilliant about the Bible's use of humor is that as we laugh at this character, we agree with the principles that are being taught, and then we're forced to have to do some self-reflection and go, well, wait a minute, maybe this applies to me as well. So today we're not just gonna look at the slacker and laugh at him. We're gonna look inside and say, well, let's see how this impacts me personally. So let's go verse by verse here. These four verses, we're gonna develop this definition of laziness. The first one is this there's a lion in the road, a lion in the public square. Now, in Israel in this time, lions weren't uncommon. Okay, so let's kind of historically they were there, but you wouldn't have seen them in the city. Okay? So you've got this slacker who's on his bed and it's time to wake up and get to work, and he's like, There's a lion out there somewhere. It's I know it. I I it's I I there's a lion in the public square today, I can't go to work. Okay? That's what he's equating to. The modern day translation is this you know, we've used laziness for a lot of things. It's like, I can't, I can't go into work today. I'm I'm I'm sick. Or maybe we're not sick, or we're driving down the road and we get pulled over by the police officer. I've got to roast in the oven. I cannot be stopping around. I've got to get back to it. You know, we have a reason to avoid whatever it is that we're being confronted with. So your first definition is this: laziness gives birth to excuses and procrastination. Not only does the slacker come up with a reason for why he shouldn't work, he's also justifying a reason. He doesn't just want to avoid work, he wants to have a defense for why he doesn't need to go. Okay? Laziness, that tentacle, it's bigger and it's got more impact than we might think. Behind the force of this verse is a heart that procrastinates and tries to put off tomorrow what they should be doing today. The slacker is one who pretends like he wants to work but never actually gets there. And that kind of leads us into verse 14. A door turns on its hinges and a slacker on his bed. Do you catch what's happening here? See a lot of you're going, okay, that kind of makes sense. What are the two positions of a door? Open and closed, right? Does a door go anywhere other than like right here? It's attached to the wall. Okay, so now let's look at the slacker. He's attached to his bed. These are his two positions, left side, right side. He's not going anywhere. Okay? I mean, that's that's in the Bible. A lot of people don't think the Bible has some funny stuff in it, but that's there. Okay? But they're they're driving home the point here that there's this guy who is just not being productive at all. Okay, so your fill-in is this laziness leads to nothing and it wastes time. Characteristics of the slacker include the appearance of busyness, the justification of one's busyness or the appearance of effort, and the undeniable fruit of non-production. Because at the end of the day, if he never gets out of his bed, nothing happens, right? So, modern day version of this is, you know, and I've been this way. When I this was me at Mr. Williams' house, I was running around looking like I was doing something, but I wasn't really accomplishing anything. I was a door that was moving back and forth, but I wasn't actually going anywhere. Okay? You know, when you find yourself at work defending yourself in your laziness, then you're kind of like this door that's just spinning and spinning and not actually doing anything. Uh verse 15, this may be the best one of all. The slacker buries his hand in the bowl, he is too weary to bring it to his mouth. You can laugh. So he's sitting there and he's he's got a bowl full of food in front of him. That he, I don't know, I would assume he didn't make it because he's lazy. And he buries his hand in the dish, but he he can't complete the journey. Right? Now, I would tend to think that that would apply to somebody who's exhausted in the sense that they've worked so hard that they have no energy left. And a few times in my life I can recall coming home from work and a physical labor job and and getting home and it being late in the evening and just being so tired that I really didn't want to eat, I just wanted to go to bed. But that's not what's happening here. Okay? Laziness has been happening all day, and it's still happening when it comes for mealtime. You can't even complete the task of feeding himself. I mean, we would look at somebody like that and say they need some kind of help, right? Who has a sandwich laying in front of them at mealtime and just can't do it? They can't pick it up. That's laziness. It's an I can't do it attitude. It's just this idea that something's just too hard. It's a lame duck mentality that says, I just can't do this. At the heart of this verse is a complaining heart that won't even engage in simple tasks. So that's your next fill in the blank. Laziness causes us to complain. Are y'all ready for another story? Thank you for your enthusiasm. So, as an eighth grade teacher, if you've ever if you have an eighth grader at home or you've ever interacted with any eighth graders anywhere, you know that they're a special age group. And one of the rules that we have at our school is that you have to wear an ID. Okay, and it's just a simple lanyard with a square plastic ID on it that has your name and picture. Not hard, right? Shouldn't be. And yet there are a group of students every day that don't wear their IDs. Oh, they have them. They're in their pocket or they're in their backpack, but they just won't take it out and put it on. So I'm being the good teacher that I am, and I care about the rules. I stop and I say, hey, student A, where's your ID? Do you have an ID today? You know, I'm trying to be gentle here. I'm not like, put your ID on. They don't like that. Like, do you have an ID today? Oh yeah. Oh, okay. Well, where is it? It's in my backpack. Great. Can you put it on? Man, mister, why you gotta mess with me about my ID? I don't stop and go. I'm like, whoa, whoa, we just took like an easy conversation. Now you're making this really difficult. What's so hard about that? I just don't want to wear it. I wish you'd just leave me alone. Oh, and now there's an idea. Let me let me tell you how you can get that. Take your ID out of your backpack, put it on, and I'll walk away and say, hey, have a good day, and you'll never hear from me the rest of the day unless I see you don't have your ID on. But I just don't want to, mister. Seriously? Like this is this is this happens every day where I work, okay? Yeah, I know. Pray for me, please. All right? But that's the idea here that there's food in front of you and you won't even eat it. Or there's a simple rule that says, you know, put your ID on and you won't do it. Or if you're a parent and you have two and a half year olds, they do this really well, right? I just don't want to pick up my room. There's three toys on the ground. Pick them up and we'll go eat dinner. But I just don't want to. I can't. I babysat some boys a long time ago, and I'll never forget, we were cleaning up. And this guy he picked up a toy and he walked it the whole 12 feet across the room and he put it in the basket, and then he came up to me and he said, Mr. Matt, I just don't think I can pick up anymore. Oh, really? Why is that? I just walked all the way from over there and I am tired. Oh, okay. Well, let's uh let me walk back with you and let's try it again. You know, I mean, that's the idea here of the slacker that buries his hand in the bowl. And you're gonna see here in a minute that in our lives we bury our hand in the bowl a lot, and yet don't bring it to our mouth. We halfway do things, okay? So now look at verse 16. In his own eyes, a slacker is wiser than seven men who can answer sensibly. This isn't really a picture or a humorous part, it's kind of just a straightforward truth that says, look, a slacker tends to think that he's better than other people, or that he's wiser than other people, or that he's he's kind of a know-it-all. Okay, so your last blank there is that laziness can make us arrogant. He thinks he's got the answers to everyone else's problems, and yet whatever wisdom he does possess, he obviously doesn't apply to his own life because he's living in laziness. Okay, so I dunno I hadn't thought about that until I read this verse and thought laziness can make us arrogant, but that's true. We can sit back and be really good at trying to tell everybody else what's right and wrong as opposed to looking inward at our own hearts, and that's kind of what's happening here. So um, as I was preparing for this message, I read a few commentaries, and uh a pastor by the name of Bob Deffenbaugh gives a really good definition of laziness, that's your next fill-in-the-blank. He says this laziness is choosing to do what's most enjoyable instead of what's most important. Now, with any definition for anything, there always comes some caveats. Okay, so I want to make sure that I set the record straight on some things you might be thinking. First off, laziness is not the same thing as rest. Okay? The Bible commands us to rest. Rest always comes after what, though? Work. Okay. I would argue you can't truly rest if you're lazy. Okay? God rested from his works, he set forth that pattern for us. So we're called to rest. And rest is a good thing. We know that this side of heaven, our bodies are physical and they they're not perfect, and they need time off. And that's that's okay. And vacations are good things, okay? So don't hear me stand up here saying that if you ever stop and just kind of sit for a minute and try to regroup, that that's sinful. That's not what I'm talking about. Laziness is a different type of avoiding things, it's a different type of non-activity, okay? The second thing is this our definition isn't fully comprehensive. You may be able to figure out other ways that this applies, so feel free to do that. But just know that laziness impacts so much more than we might think it does. And that's what we're fixing to do here. We're gonna peel back the personal layer of this message and start jumping from okay, here's our definition, what's it actually look like in four parts of our life? Okay? Now, I gotta give another disclaimer. My students say it's about to get real. This is God's word, this is the Bible. As a church, we believe that this is the source of truth, and this is what God has given us to teach us how to live lives of godliness. Okay? The Bible describes itself in this way: it says that it's living and active, that it's sharper than any two-edged sword, that it's able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, that it can divide both joints and marrow. That's pretty hefty stuff, okay? The Bible's a sword, not a play toy. It's not soft at all. And I'm not telling you that so that I can just bring down the hammer on you because that's not the purpose here today, but I do want you to hear this. You might be offended at some of the things that you hear today, and that may not be a bad thing. Okay? Is that okay for me to tell you that? Alright? If you have an issue with something I say, come and talk to me, because you shouldn't just automatically believe everything that someone says up here just because they're here. But if you have an issue with what the word says, and we're gonna read a lot of it here in a minute, I'd invite you to sit before the Lord and just say, God, maybe you're speaking to me and trying to tell me that something needs to change. That's okay, that's what it's designed to do. So if it if that happens today, let that happen, okay? All right, so we're gonna jump into the four areas. The first one's work. We've been talking a lot about work, and that's typically where we think laziness is that, you know, you probably came in today going, oh, that's all the sermon's gonna be about. It's just how I need to not be lazy at work. Cool, got that. Good to go. Well, that's the first part, okay? You probably don't struggle with laziness in America. I think we're typically overworkers than we are underworkers, and you'll hear in a minute that overworking is a different kind of laziness, and we'll talk about that towards the very end. But maybe you're one of the people in the room who takes shortcuts at work. Maybe you call in sick, that's your lion in the square when you're not really sick, or you do your job halfway because that's just how everybody else does it. I'm guilty of that sometimes, right? It's easy to kind of look around and go, well, nobody else is really putting forth that level of effort, so why should I? Maybe you cheat on your timesheet. I don't know. That's a different type of laziness that says I want to get paid for something that I didn't really do. So let's look at what the Bible has to say about this. Okay? We're gonna check all four of these areas and we're gonna look at two scripture passages after each of them. And I want you to just listen to those passages and let them speak to you. The first one's in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 28, and it says this He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those who are. In need. You see, work's not just a paycheck. It's not just a means to provide for your family. According to this passage, it's also so that we may have something to share with those in need. Now, does that paint a bigger picture for you of what work is meant for? But let's talk about why work is such an issue and why laziness is such an issue. This goes all the way back to the very beginning when Adam and Eve were in the garden. Okay? God gave Adam work to do before sin ever entered the world. So work is not a bad thing. Alright? It was commanded by God. He gave them tasks. And they were pretty easy, right? Name the animals, make babies. Alright? And don't eat from the tree. Those are the three rules. So they failed at that. And God said, Well, now, I'm sorry, but there's this ugly thing called sin, and it's going to affect everything, and your work is going to be hard. And he uses this analogy, says that the ground is going to produce thorns and thistles. Okay? My father-in-law is a farmer, and I love doing farm work, and he will be the first to tell you that if you let a piece of land lay for too long, they'll grow thorns and thistles. In West Texas, they call those mesquite trees. And it'll overrun an entire property, and you'll have a whole lot more work to do on the back end if you don't maintain it on the front end. Okay? So in our own hearts and our own lives, this is very true. If laziness creeps in and you let it fester, thorns and thistles are going to grow, and it's going to be a whole lot more difficult to see victory in that area, as if as opposed to kind of maintaining and saying, okay, Lord, what is it that you need me to see that needs to change, and how can you help me change it? Another passage, Colossians 3, 23 and 24, says, Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically as something done for the Lord and not for men, knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ. So we all have an earthly boss, and we are to do a good job and to, in a sense, serve our earthly boss because they're in authority over us, but we're not, that just doesn't stop there. Okay? Our work is to be done for the Lord. That means that ultimately we're looking at Jesus and saying, hey, are you pleased with the job that I do? A no for all students in the room, by the way, because you're not exempt from this. Alright? You have work to do. You probably have homework that your teacher gave you on Friday. That's due tomorrow. I did. Do it well. Don't be lazy and halfway do your work. Teachers hate that. Okay? I I I tell my students, I give them my email address at work and I say, take a picture of the problem if you're not sure. I mean, I try to set them up, I give them everything they need to be successful. It's laziness if they just show up on Monday and go, well, I mean, I just I couldn't do it. I I it was right there, but I just I couldn't put the pen on the paper. I just it was just too hard. Okay? So our work life, it matters to the Lord. If we're doing anything short of what God's purposes for work are, we're dishonoring him and we're missing out on that purpose that we could serve others in need. And that's what's really cool. You don't just make more money so you can have more stuff. I heard somebody say you get you get blessed with more money so you can bless more people. All right, and that's kind of what this verse is talking about. Alright, let's jump to the second one: the home life. We could do a whole sermon series on this, and we usually do throughout the year. We teach on family and we teach on some particular topics. We try we try to make sure that we talk about those things, but I'm just gonna try to limit it to two things uh marriage and parenting. And we're gonna try to do this in about four minutes. It's gonna be pretty quick. Now, I will say this I'm speaking most of these uh examples out of my own life. If they happen to relate to you, that's great. I've gotten permission from my wife to share these stories. Most of them are ones where I've failed in this area. So as I tell you these sentences that laziness, what it does to me at home, just see if they if they connect to you. Laziness keeps me from engaging my wife in important conversations. Laziness keeps me from spending quality time with my children and my spouse. Laziness says that I can just come home and sit on the couch and watch TV because my day is done, or because that's how every American sitcom TV dad is portrayed. Laziness keeps me from disciplining my kids. It's when I see my daughter do something that I know I need to address, and I'm not, you know, I need to be gracious, but I need to go and teach her, and I just, you know, I just don't want to deal with that right now. That's too hard. That's laziness. Laziness passes the buck to somebody else when you want to avoid the hard thing. Alright, so y'all ready for another story? Oh, good, you're getting a little better at that whole thing. Yes, we're excited. So a couple weeks ago, uh, I mentioned I've got a two and a half-year-old daughter who's great, a lover, all right, and we got a two-month-old son who's also amazing. And if you're a parent in the room, what are some of the times of the day that you find are the most challenging? Just toss them out there. All day. You're right. Bedtime, dinner, nap time, homework, mornings, mornings. For us, it's bath time. Okay? Can I bathtime's not always a real pleasant time in our home. All right. My daughter, I don't know whatever happens. She's playing and everything's great, and we get to bathtime, and it's like she is the neediest person on the planet. And I can't please her to make anything happen. I'm like, what's wrong? I want mom. I'm like, she's right next door. I know, but I want her now. I'm like, well, she's she's feeding the baby. Okay, so those two things happen simultaneously. Well, recently we've been trying to help our baby take a bottle, which means I get an opportunity to feed the baby, and my wife gets to do the bath. So let me tell you how a conversation went the other day. And I'm not trying to make my wife look bad here. I'm the one who messed this up, okay? So just hear me out. Sitting at the table, I said, you know, babe, I'd really I think I think I'd like to give Benaya, that's our son. I'd like to give Benah a bottle tonight. What do you think? She's like, well, you know, we just gave him one yesterday. That's where it should have ended, by the way. Men in the room, that's where it should have been over. I should have stopped and said, you know what, I'll I'll take care of bath, no worries. But I kept going. Yeah, but you know, the next few days we're gonna be gone. We've got some things going on in the evening, and he's not gonna get one. And we had a bad experience with our daughter that when we took her away from the bottle too long, she didn't like it after that, and it was really hard, and so you know, we don't want that to happen. And yeah, but I just I'd like to space it out a little bit more. Okay, I had another opportunity, could have ended it right there. You know, I've just I've had a hard day today at work, and I'm I'm just tired, and bathtime is such a struggle for me. But the milk's frozen in the freezer, and I have to get it out, and it's not gonna be ready in time, and so you see where you see what we're doing here? We're both being incredibly lazy. We're trying to avoid the hard thing of giving our two and a half-year-old daughter a bath, and we're trying to see who gets stuck with the easy thing of getting to feed the baby. All right? It's humorous, but it's it's also it's indicative of something bigger that's going on in our hearts. And I stop and I think about stories like that, or I think about situations like that, and this is where I kind of get emotional as a dad, especially of a daughter, and I go, you know, there's gonna come a day when I'm gonna wish that I had a two and a half year old to give a bath to. And if I have spent my whole parenting years trying to avoid the hard things and not embracing them as opportunities, I'm gonna be really regretful whenever they grow up, and I'm gonna be, man, where did the time go? So I tell you, parents, right now, you have a limited window of opportunity with your kids. Take advantage of it, seize every moment, and do everything you can to try and teach them and instruct them and be intentional with them in your home because you can't afford to be lazy. Think back to that field that grows thorns and thistles. I teach eighth graders who, no offense to their parents, but it looks like they were lazy at home for the first 14 years, and now that field is full of thorns and thistles, and it is not pretty, and it's hard. It produces a rebellious spirit and it produces a complaining heart, and all those things that we said laziness can do to us, even now, it can do that in your kids if you let it. Okay? Another shameless plug here because my wife and I helped out with preschool ministry. If you're in the room and you want to help serve teaching preschoolers or elementary kids, and you want to come alongside parents in this journey of raising their kids, I would invite you to come and talk to us or Harley because we always have needs there and we're always looking for people who are willing to serve. And parents, we give out this thing called the parent resource every month, and it has tons of activities that you can do with your kids, and it even has activities you can do at bathtime. Okay? So let's look at the Bible and let me show you just a couple of passages that address this issue of why it's so important that we're not lazy with our kids. Psalm 78. My people hear my instruction, listen to what I say. I will declare wise sayings, I will speak mysteries from the past, things we have heard and known, and that our fathers have passed down to us. We must not hide them from their children, but must tell a future generation the praises of the Lord, his might, and the wonderful works he has performed. He established a testimony in Jacob and set up a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach their children, so that a future generation, children yet to be born, might know they were to rise and tell their children, so that they might put their confidence in God and not forget God's works, but keep his commands. There's lots of stories in the Bible where a generation just goes without learning about the things of the Lord, and they turn into this rebellious generation, this idolatrous generation. Parents, don't be lazy with your kids, and don't be lazy with your spouse when it comes to teaching and pointing them to the things that God has done. Deuteronomy 6, listen, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house, when you walk along the road, when you lie down, when you get up. I think that pretty much covers everything, right? Okay? Every moment's an opportunity. Take advantage of it. Now, I always give caveats and things. There are certain situations I get it, may not provide you the same opportunities time-wise that you may have as other people at your home. And I'm not here to say that just because you physically can't be there, that somehow that means you're being lazy. Okay? That's not the case. I mean, the first example that comes to my mind is I think about our troops and our military, and they're away for a long time, and then they come back. Obviously, this isn't a situation where we're saying, well, you're not with your family. All right, that's a different deal. But for those of us who are blessed with the opportunity to be here day in and day out, we need to really be careful with how we're spending our time at home. All right, number three, culture. We live in a culture that praises laziness. What was the guy's name on Married with Children? Bundy, something. Al Bundy, right? He was like the model for what it was to be a dad, right? A terrible model, but just lazy. Our culture thinks it's funny. We think it's funny, but the truth is, is it might be closer in our homes than we think. We have this idea that our job is to work and save up enough so that we don't have to work anymore. Okay? We call that retirement, and retirement's not a bad thing. Okay, the Bible's clear that it's good to be wise with your money, but just like any other season of life, retirement is about what you choose to do with it. Okay? There's a pastor named John Piper who wrote a famous book called Don't Waste Your Life. And in it he talks about this whole retirement mentality that says somehow our culture thinks we're supposed to have 15 to 20 years of play before we go and meet King Jesus. He's like, well, if that's what we do, what are we going to say to him when we get there? Look at my golf swing, Lord. I spent 20 years perfecting it just for you. Now, as a caveat, if you go to the golf course and you're you're witnessing to people and you're building relationships, that's great. But if you're just going to the golf course just to play because that's what you want to do and you've earned it, you need to reevaluate that. Or, you know, we bought a nice beach home, Lord, and look at our seashell collection. He's not going to be impressed by that. Okay? I firmly believe that the culture has sold us a lie that says life is all about what you get at the very end of it. These last 10 or so years, and then have fun and do everything, and then you die. I hope that's not all there is to it. I truly believe that God has so much more for us if we're willing to ask him and pursue him. And we're going to talk about that here in just a minute. But it's not just retirement mentality that can cripple our faith. All right, young people in the room, I'm about to press a button here. Binge watching Netflix. Okay? Facebook. There's actually a condition now, I think, that has to deal with articulating thumbs because people are on their smartphones so much. Okay? What else? What else? Playing video games. There you go, students. You're back in the mix here. Okay? You got homework to do. Play video games after, but not too late. We're kind of like that door that's swinging. Alright? We're just filling up our time with things that don't get us anywhere. So we need to be careful about that. Ephesians 5 says it this way, and this is really well said. Pay careful attention then to how you walk. Not as unwise people, but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil. Kind of like that field that's left to itself. It'll produce bad things. Your days are going to produce bad things if you just let them. But understand, so don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. And then this next one, Luke 12, kind of sums up the retirement mentality and not just that, but other areas. Jesus is talking, he says, then he told them a parable. A rich man's land was very productive. And he thought to himself, What should I do? Since I don't have anywhere to store my crops. I'll do this, he said. I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and I'll store all my grain and my goods there. Then I'll say to myself, You have many goods stored up for many years. Eat, drink, and enjoy yourself. Take it easy. Does that sound familiar? But God said to him, You fool, this very night your life is demanded of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be? That's how it is with the one who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. Again, I'm not telling you it's wrong to be blessed financially. We know that that's not sinful in and of itself. But if that's what we're pursuing, and if that's what we think life is about, just so that we can have bigger barns, all that stuff's gonna be passed on to somebody somebody else anyway. My wife and I were in the car yesterday, and I was just thinking, like, how would you avoid that mentality? Or like, what would that, what could that look like? And to me, it looks like somebody who they're on their deathbed and they've already given everything away. Right? They've already portioned it out. The kids have their share, and the neighbors and whoever, and church and charity and whoever, but it's already done so that the question of whose things will they be has already been answered. Because they know it's not going to be theirs when they leave. There's no, what's the phrase? There's no U-Hauls behind a hearse. Right? So we just need to be careful here that our goal in life is not just to retire and sit back and play for 15 years, but rather God has something bigger for us. All right, the last one spiritual life. This is the one we all need to pay attention to, no matter what season we're in. And this is also where the workaholic kind of comes back into play. Okay. I believe as a child of God, as a Christian, that God's called me to four distinct roles and probably more, but they're kind of in this order. I'm first a believer in him, I'm a Christ follower. I'm second a husband, and then a father, and then an employee. Somebody who's spiritually lazy, and this is something I've struggled with, tends to get those things reversed and say that I'm an employee first, that that's what drives every decision I make is my job. It determines my time, it determines how I spend my money. It's all about that one. And then I'm gonna spend time with my kids, and then if there's a little left over, I'll spend time with my wife, and then, oh, there's no time left over, and I just don't have time to really spend with the Lord. Okay? And again, I'm not here to try and beat you down about that, but I do think that we have things backwards so many times, and we need to be really careful that we're not overprioritizing good things and missing out on God things. Okay? There's no better way to start your day than to sit before the Lord and to have some time in his word and to pray and to get direction and instruction from him. But so many of us are so busy working at everything else that's temporary that we're missing out on what God has for us. It says things like this I don't have time to read the Bible, I don't have time to pray, or it's too hard to share the gospel with my neighbor, or it's the church's job to raise my kids to be good Christians, or my wife, she reads her Bible on her own, so I don't really need to worry about her. She's good. Those are all ways that laziness can infiltrate our spiritual life. The truth is there's a war going on around us, a spiritual war, and we're neglecting it if we're being spiritually lazy. Matthew 6 says this don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And then later on at the end of that chapter, he says, So don't worry. So oftentimes when we find ourselves pursuing work and pursuing money, it's out of this worry, fear that we're not going to have enough. He says, Don't worry, saying, What will I eat? What will we drink, or what will we wear? For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, but your heavenly father knows that you need them. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Again, it's a priority thing. It's a perspective thing. He calls those who seek after those things first idolaters. So everybody stretch for a minute, 30 seconds, 10 seconds stretch break. I don't have 30 seconds. Alright, 10 seconds. How do we deal with this? What's the hope that we can offer in this area of laziness? What's the way out? Two things. The first one is God's purpose. God has given us something to pursue. So look at how Paul describes the work that we're called to in Ephesians 2.10. He says, For we are his creation, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time that we should walk in them. Did you know that at the beginning of the world when God was making everything, he was lining out things that you would be doing for him? He was preparing good works for you to do, to bring honor and glory to his name. You want to know what those things are? You got to ask him. Wake up and pray, Lord, you know, according to the Bible, it says that you've prepared some good works for me today, something that I'm supposed to do. What is it? Ask him, and he'll show you. I really believe that he will. Paul describes it again in 1 Corinthians 15, 58 to give us a little bit different perspective about the Lord's work. He says, Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. There's a phrase that is stuck with me. It says, Only one life twill soon be passed. Only what's done for Christ will last. When we pursue the Lord's work, it's not done in vain. The verse we read earlier, when we're rich towards God, when we're storing up treasures in heaven, those are the things that are going to last. And it's not something that's got to be, you know, overcomplicated. I mean, storing up treasures in heaven are things like teaching your kids the things of the Lord. There are things like blessing people, and they're things like telling other people about what Christ has done for you. It's everyday life. This can be done in everyday life. It's not, you don't have to be a pastor or somebody famous to be able to pursue the Lord's work. But I do say this you can't do it in your own strength. You can't do it on your own, which is the second part of the way out. You gotta have God's power. If you spent any time. Time with us here at Point, you know that we don't just tell you go do better yourself. We talk every weekend. We even I remember somebody came, y'all just talk about Jesus all the time and like how he has to do everything. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, that's that's the only way this is gonna work. All right. I have tried it in my own strength, you have tried it in your own strength to avoid certain things, and you know that you're gonna fail. But with God's strength and God's power, we can actually see this area of laziness be overcome. I need to say this though, because maybe you're in the room and you're not a Christian and you're going, well, none of that really makes sense to me at all. The answer for you is not to start pursuing God's purpose with his power because you don't have his power in you if you haven't put your faith and trust in him. And there'll be opportunities to do that. So if you're sitting here today going, you know, I struggle with everything that was on that board all the time, and I don't feel like I got any chance at getting over it. Maybe you're in a place where you haven't put your faith in Jesus and said, I submit to you. I'm gonna trade what I've been chasing after, and I'm gonna chase after you, Jesus. And if that's you in the room, I invite you in a minute when we have an opportunity to pray together that you might do that. But if you're a believer in the room, then you need to understand that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, and that's the only way you're gonna see laziness transformed in your life. Paul talks about it like this in Colossians 1. He says, We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. I labor for this, striving with his strength, which powerfully works within me. Paul knew it. He said, I labor. There's a part here that we got to get out of bed and actually do some things, but we go with the strength of the Lord in us, and that's how we'll see success. So I want to close with a couple of thoughts here, a couple of pictures of what Jesus one's a parable, and the other is Jesus in his final days, okay, actually in his final moments. Um, you think you may think, well, Jesus didn't struggle with laziness, or you know, he he didn't have to deal with this issue. The truth is the Bible tells us that he was tempted in every way just as we are, yet was without sin. Jesus can relate to you when you're faced with a hard decision in which laziness tells you, I'd just rather avoid it and let it be. Jesus has been there. The night before he died, he was in the Garden of Gethsemane and he was with his disciples, and it was late, and no doubt they were physically tired. Okay? And he says, Hey, stay awake for just a little bit longer and pray. Pray for me. Because he knew he was fixing to go to the cross. And so he goes away and he prays and he says, Father, if there's any way that this cup can pass from me, and what he meant by that, if there's any way you can accomplish this without me dying on the cross, would you let that happen? But then he ended it. Not my will, but yours be done. So he comes back and he sees the disciples again and they've fallen asleep. He's like, Wake up. Pray. Help me here. This is my life we're talking about. Stay awake and pray. And he goes away again. And he repeats this process three times, and all three times the disciples fall asleep. And Jesus is left saying this phrase, not my will, but yours be done, Father. And ultimately we know that he carried that out, right? He went to the cross the very next day, and the Bible tells us in another section that he did it for the joy that was set before him. That he endured the cross, he despised the shame so that we could have life. There's the power source. Christ did it, he lived it, he obeyed for us, so that now we can walk in the way that God has called us to. I want to read a passage to you. It's not going to be up on the screen, and this is how we're going to close. All right, it's another parable. Jesus told parables because people could relate to them. I kind of think it's the same, you know, similar idea when I'm in my math class and I just tell a story because I hope the kids can relate to it. They see me as this tall guy in boots and think, uh, he doesn't know anything about me. But the truth is, is we've lived some life and I can share some wisdom with them. And Jesus shared all kinds of great stories. And this particular one kind of sums up this whole idea of what God has given us, what we do with it matters, and we're going to have to give an account at the end. Okay, so just listen. If you want to close your eyes or if you just want to reflect, I just I want I want you to hear this and let it speak to your heart. He's talking about the kingdom of heaven, and he says, For it is just like a man going on a journey. He called his own slaves and turned over his possessions to them, and to one he gave five talents, to another he gave two, and to another he gave one talent, to each according to his own ability. Then he went on a journey. Immediately the man who had received five talents went, put them to work, and earned five more. In the same way the man with two earned two more. But the man who had received one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five talents approached, presented five more talents, and said, Master, you gave me five talents, look, I've earned five more talents. And his master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful over a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master's joy. Then the man with two talents also approached, and he said, Master, you gave me two talents, and look, I've made two more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful over a few things, I will put you in charge of many things. Share your master's joy. I'm going to stop right there and notice. It wasn't about the amount that they gave that he gave them, it was about what they did with it. Okay? So one got five and one got two, and he wasn't ex, you know, and they didn't compare each other. They didn't look at each other, well, he got five and I only got two. No. They took what they had been given, as the text says, according to their own ability, and they went and they put it to work for the Lord. But look at what it says about the one who only had one talent. Then the man who had received one talent also approached and said, Master, I know you. You're a difficult man, reaping where you haven't sown, and gathering where you haven't scattered seed. So I was afraid, and I went off and hid your talent in the ground. Look, you have what is yours. But his master replied to him, You evil, lazy slave, if you knew that I reap where I haven't sown, and I gather where I haven't scattered, then you should have deposited my money into the bank, and I would have returned and received it back with interest. He's like, You didn't even do the minimum. You were below laziness. You went and hit it in the ground. He says, So take the talent from him and give it to the one who has ten talents, for to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have more than enough. But from the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. And throw this good for nothing slave into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus is really serious about how we spend our time and how we spend our money and how we spend our lives. And we can't afford to be lazy. The last thing I want is for Jesus to call me an evil, lazy slave. The last thing I want is to take whatever it is that He's given me and go hide it in the ground somewhere. But you look at those other two slaves who took what God had given them, their master had given them, they went and they produced fruit with it and made more out of it. That's a testimony to the world around them that says, Hey, look, you can come serve my master. He'll bless you, he'll do these things, and you can serve him, and and and you can have this life that's full and abundant and that's better than you ever thought, as opposed to the slave that just said, I know you, Master, and you're a hard and difficult man. Jesus is telling you today, his arms are open. And maybe you think he's a hard and difficult man, and maybe you've been avoiding him. I don't know. I don't know where you are, but his arms are open, and he says that he is he's gracious and he's compassionate. His yoke is easy and his burden is light, and he wants you to come to him. So wherever you are today, my prayer for you is that you won't just look at this issue of laziness in your life and stop and go, Well, okay, I just need to do a better job at work or home or whatever it is. But that you'd consider Jesus, what he's done for you, and how you can walk in response to that. Let's pray.