Laziness and Vigor
Here is the auto transcript from this week’s sermon on the Laziness: Abstinence is not deliverance
There are flyers in the lobby for matzah bark.
Matzah bark is also known as matzah crack.
It is also known as chocolate-covered matzah.
It is also known as, outside of matzah pizza,
the only acceptable way to eat matzah.
And so, part of our youth fundraiser,
we've been doing this for many, many years,
but we're trying to raise $3,000 for the youth
for the summer camps, for some of the participation things
that they want to do.
I don't know specifically, so I'm going to give a generality,
but my understanding is that they've already raised
roughly right around $1,900 towards the $3,000 goal.
So, kudos to the children,
but I also have to give credit where credit is due,
and I have to pat myself on the back
for all the work I did on the yard sale for the youth.
And no, I didn't do anything at the yard sale,
so that's a lie.
I'll confess my sins, and I'll start off being the leader
and confess my sins.
But we--
What, Dakota?
- Some of us got sunburned.
- Some of you got sunburned?
Okay, well, I am really sorry that you got sunburned,
but the good news is, is after the first sunburn,
then you start to actually take on color.
And at that point in time, like,
you'll be Instagram-ready in no time flat.
But I do want to give, as she walks in,
credit to Sarah Wallace,
Cam and Sarah are youth leaders.
Sarah did a lot of the work.
There was other ladies, the Hellermans and Brittany Day
and the Yurdaks, and there was the Hollermans and Farrah.
There's all kinds of people who were there and present for it.
But ultimately, every day,
right around the time that I woke up--
Oh, it's okay, Izzy.
I guess I should give credit to Izakar as well.
He did help out on at least the first day.
But Sarah did do the majority of the work
as far as promoting it, getting the word out,
tearing it down, setting it up.
It's a lot of work to do that, getting all the kids involved.
And so kudos to you, Sarah,
for all the work that you did on that.
So matzo bark is now available.
It's $10 per pound.
Obviously, I can say this now.
This is why gluttony was not the teaching for this week.
We did it earlier.
But it is $10 a pound.
You have the right to buy as many pounds as you want,
as long as you're not gluttonous.
What that line is depends upon you.
But you can scan the QR code in the lobby.
There's some forms you can take with you.
Otherwise, it's on Facebook. It's on the website.
We're in a really short window.
On April 20th, we are going to bring all of the matzo bark
that is ordered, pass it out at service.
So there's basically two weeks for you to order that.
Our goal is to raise about $1,100 more.
That is an awful lot of matzo bark.
So you should just go ahead and plan on whatever days
you were going to have matzo pizza,
you're just eating chocolate-covered matzo this year.
So we thank you in advance for that.
Okay, Brent's already texted me.
He's ordered 20 pounds.
Okay, fantastic. Thank you, Brent.
Do I hear 30 pounds?
40 pounds.
Okay, well, we have now invited Yeshua
to come flip over the tables of this church.
[laughter]
All right, we're going to get into laziness.
And I'm going to tell on myself.
I'm sitting in the back in the green room during this series
because it's a pretty heavy series to deliver.
When you start talking about lust, and you start talking about pride,
and you start talking about greed, and all these different things,
they're not exactly fun.
It's not easy to be talking to people who might be wrestling with it,
some who are in a lifelong struggle of--
I see you, Ephraim. I see you.
[laughter]
They've figured out how to type things on the confidence monitor.
They're getting very, very bold.
I will say, though, that there was a lot of vigor in what you did,
so there was no laziness in that, so kudos to you.
But it's hard to spiritually get into a place
where you can just feel at peace
with whatever the Lord wants to do in these types of topics.
However, this week I was back there, and I was talking to the Lord,
and I was like, "Okay, Lord, you know I don't struggle with laziness.
Anybody who's known me for any period of time knows that laziness,
and any form of laziness, would not be associated
as an adjective that's a part of me."
In fact, if anything--
In fact, if anything--
[laughter]
I can't even be mad.
The initiative is fantastic.
We will figure out how to lock that computer next week for the sermon,
but I can't be mad in the interim.
It's actually pretty funny.
I was back there asking the Lord, "Okay, Lord, how do I deliver this
in a manner that isn't judgmental, that isn't over the top?
This isn't something I have ever wrestled with,
and so I want to be very compassionate in doing that."
While I was back there, the Lord already decided He was going to take me off my notes.
It would be a shocker that I would walk up here and be off my notes.
Genesis 2.15 was not where I wanted to start with this,
but I feel like this is something that the Lord wants me to share.
"Then the Lord took man and put him in the garden of Eden
to work it and keep it.
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying,
'You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of knowledge and good and evil you shall not eat;
and for in the day that you eat, you shall surely die.'"
Obviously, most of us in this room have a very clear understanding
of the two trees, the tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
We were offered the ability to eat from any tree except for the one,
and of course, what did we do?
We did the one thing we were asked not to do.
But before that, there's something that sometimes gets overlooked,
and today I actually want to really emphasize this,
even though it was not originally in my notes.
"The Lord God took man and put him in the garden to work it
and keep it."
Now, we live in the state of Oklahoma.
For those of you who are up from Texas,
there's not much difference between the Bermuda grass
and how some of these do.
If you plant a garden and you do not work a garden,
what happens to the garden?
It dies, it's full of weeds.
It will produce things, but the things it produces is of no value to you.
Your carrots are gone, your potatoes are gone, your spinach is gone.
Why anybody would plant lettuce or spinach in a garden is beyond me.
It's not edible.
But if you don't tend the garden--
the prayer team leads are shaking their head no.
Brent@HebraicFamily.com.
[laughter]
If you don't tend the garden, then the garden is overtaken by weeds.
Whatever it was that you had hoped to reap, the harvest,
the fruit of the labor that was there, will not be produced.
Laziness is the quality of being unwilling to work or use energy
to be or remain idle.
Under that definition, I definitely don't fit that.
I don't sit still at all.
I will toe tap. I will move. I will fidget.
Some would say I have ADHD.
I rebuke that. I am just high-functioning.
And so, your ADHD?
I believe that you're just high-functioning.
You have a super-smart brain.
And as you get older, I believe the Lord is going to use that for something extreme.
All right, don't do that now, because now you're just trying to send me waves from your brain right there.
But as you get older, I believe that the Lord will use that for something special for his kingdom.
One of the terminologies we use for laziness--
because laziness is not something we like to say to somebody.
If you're going to talk about being lazy,
you're going to talk about a work ethic.
Very rarely do you just walk up to somebody and you're like, "Hey, you're lazy."
It's not going to go over very well if you have that conversation.
Just like any of the other deadly sins, like, "Hey, you're prideful,"
or "Hey, you have unhealthy desires."
These are not things you just walk up and engage in conversation on.
Same thing with laziness.
So one of the terms that is commonly used in our world
that would be synonymous with laziness and/or the vigor of having a good work ethic
would be "work ethic."
Anybody ever heard that terminology, "work ethic"?
Am I the only one who comes from the corporate world where work ethic is talked about a lot?
So it's good to have a good work ethic.
A work ethic is something that--
if you have a good work ethic, this is normally how you get promoted.
They come to work on time, sometimes they're early, they finish their tasks,
even above and beyond whatever their tasks are,
they work hard, and by working hard, they produce more than an employer is paying them.
And if you produce more with your work ethic than your employer pays you,
you most always will have a job.
Even in today's economy where layoffs are rampant and things like that,
if the employer has to choose between 10 people
and you have the best work ethic of those 10 people,
most likely they will find a way to keep you on.
The work ethic is something that in the culture of America,
we thrive in that area.
Work hard.
If you work hard, you will produce.
And then you've got the different generations that come along,
and what works hard, what that looks like is different for every single person.
The work ethic for one generation is,
we worked really hard with our hands, and we worked from sunrise to sunset.
Then you have another generation who's far more technologically driven,
and they're like, "Hey, look, I can accomplish in one hour
what it took my grandfather to accomplish in eight hours in a day."
And then there's video games, and there's all these other things that are there.
But if you work hard, you will get ahead in this world.
You will get ahead in this world.
If you don't work hard, most of the time you will not get ahead in this world.
Why is this important? Because this is not a worldly concept.
Genesis 2 tells us that even before the Sabbath day,
when the man was placed inside,
the very first thing the Lord asked them to do was to work the garden.
So we're a commandment-loving people, right?
We love the Old Testament, we love the prophets, we love the New Testament.
In our corner of Christianity, we're very fond of the entire Word of God.
We believe it's all applicable.
We're the sane ones who still love to look at Moses
and see how that points to Jesus,
rather than looking at just certain areas and just taking them out of context.
And so when we see that, we love the commandments.
But I've almost never in 17 years have heard people talk about
the emphasis on the commandment of working,
tending the garden, protecting.
There's a lot of different words that could be used there.
Now, we do like to protect.
Especially if we're looking at eschatology,
we like to talk about how we could protect our food storage
or how we could protect ammunition
or how we could protect physical things that are there.
But there's so much more to protecting than hoarding.
We talked about last week, hoarding is a method
by which greed can be seen.
How do you combat that?
You give away.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day.
We thank you for the opportunity to come together.
Lord, I thank you for all of these brilliant and challenging
young men and women under the age of 10
who are testing me to be the best version of myself as a preacher.
Thankfully, Lord, I just submit myself to you
because you're the best preacher, you're the best teacher,
you're the best pastor, you're the best shepherd,
you're the best apostle, you're the best evangelist ever.
And so, Lord, we commit this time to you.
Lord, may your Holy Spirit be the one who brings this message.
May you remove any of myself, Lord.
Would you open the hearts and the minds of all of us in this room
that we would meet you here and that you would impact us.
In the name of Yeshua, amen and amen.
So, I got to tell on myself again.
It's easier to tell on myself than for you to find out on my social media profiles.
I have not spent a lot of time in Thessalonians.
I don't know why, but when I think of Paul's writings,
I really like Romans, I like Corinthians,
I like to wrestle with Galatians, I like to wrestle with some of those.
Thessalonians is not one that I would normally be like,
"You know what I'm going to do today?
I'm actually going to pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down and read Thessalonians."
That sounds like that's exactly where I should start.
Yet this week, I found myself literally sitting waiting for a meeting to have a cup of coffee.
I wasn't planning on being in my sermon prep day.
The person who I was meeting with was late.
And all of a sudden, these thoughts just started coming into my mind.
And I just started taking notes and I started typing.
And an hour and 45 minutes later, I had a sermon.
Predominantly out of Thessalonians, which I had spent very little time in before.
And when I went into Thessalonians, I had no idea the wealth of beauty that was there.
Now Brent did.
Brent, you know, obviously has gone through Thessalonians way more than I have
over the years as he's been preaching.
But I've honestly, I don't think there's ever been a time that I've ever actually taught
from first or second Thessalonians, and so this will be a first for me.
Yet in our corner of Christianity, there's a lot of emphasis on the theological and ideological thoughts.
On the theological and idea of what do we think, how does this work with the Bible.
It's very much a mind-based concept.
Yet, Paul shows us in the letters of Thessalonians that the theological and the practical
are both that he wants to take issues with here.
Also want to point out a little bit of a background on the book of Thessalonians.
Thessalonians is written to a church that would be kind of considered to be a new church.
It would be a younger church.
Maybe not necessarily it was just planted today, but it was one of the younger churches of that tour for Paul.
And so this isn't a church that's been established for 30, 40 years.
This is not Calvary Chapel.
This isn't some of these churches that have been around for a really, really long time.
So they're very, very rooted in their practice and their doctrines and how they do things.
This is a church that's fairly new.
So I just want to make sure we understand some of the context of this letter.
In 1 Thessalonians 2, 9, Paul writes, "For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil.
We worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you while we proclaim to you the gospel of God."
Then in 2 Thessalonians 3, 8, something unique happens.
He uses almost the exact same phrase.
He says, "Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day that we might not be a burden to any of you."
I think that when you see a writer use almost word for word the same statement at two different portions and two different parts of the conversation,
it's probably pretty relevant.
There's probably something that the apostle is wanting to say.
Paul is trying to make a point here.
Now, earlier in 1 Thessalonians 1, 6, just for some context,
Paul had encouraged or urged the Thessalonians that they were to imitate.
They were to imitate him, Silvanus, and Timothy.
So he's encouraging them before this conversation starts.
He says, "Hey, as I walk, I want to encourage you to walk like I walk.
As I walk like Jesus, as I walk like Yeshua, I want to encourage you to walk like I walk."
So not necessarily taking this whole approach that I've heard of sometimes in our corner of Christianity where it's like,
"Oh, Yeshua is the head of my house. Yeshua is my only master. Yeshua is my only leader."
Paul takes a different point here.
He says, "As I walk, as Timothy walks, as Silvanus walks, also you should imitate us."
And then, of course, obviously the hope would be that they're actually walking after Christ
and not after themselves or after some other deity or after some other fleshly thing that's there.
And so he says, "Because our gospel came to you not only in word,"
listen to me, church, "we love the gospel to come in the word.
Let me find and unlock some sort of numerical code or some sort of Hebrew tie or some sort of Greek.
We love that the gospel would come in the word, but also in power."
We kind of need power. The word without power is just the word.
"And in the Holy Spirit," we're still learning what to do with that in our corner of Christianity,
"and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake.
And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction."
Affliction is not exactly kind. It's not like, "Oh, hey, this was really joyous."
No, there was pain by which you received this.
There was pain by which you received this in affliction.
"And with joy," so there's both sides of the guardrail.
There's affliction and then there's joy.
So there's got to be some things in the middle of that.
"Of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and in Acacia."
So in affliction and in joy, we should receive the word of the Holy Spirit to become examples and imitators.
So what we do earlier in Thessalonians should be to model that.
So then Paul later on says again, "For you remember, brothers, our labor and toil."
Okay, so to be imitators of Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus, that we must labor and toil.
That's not new.
At the fall of man, we were supposed to work before the fall, but after the fall, we would labor.
It would be harder. We would toil. We would wrestle with that.
We're to work night and day.
Some of you in this room work night and day.
Who said, "Uh-huh"?
That we might not be a burden to any of you.
Why are we to labor and toil and work night and day?
So that we're not to be a burden.
Look around the room, church.
Just as much as you're not to be a burden to your employer or to other people in your life,
you're also not to be a burden.
The context of who Paul's talking to at this time would be the church.
We're not to be a burden to one another.
We have some responsibilities so that we aren't a burden to one another.
While we proclaim to you the gospel.
So while we're going and we're working and we're doing our jobs and we're preaching the gospel,
whether we're preaching the gospel by vocal or we're being the Bible that people will read in the workplace,
we're supposed to do that to not become a burden to one another.
Paul and the others worked hard day and night not to be a burden.
And Paul encouraged the Thessalonians that they were to walk this out.
This was not just the understanding of the word.
It wasn't just the knowledge of the word.
It wasn't that they were just supposed to understand it.
They were to do it.
Guys, this is a big reason why this year as we try to write a discipleship concept of how we're going to go about making disciples,
it's not about you understanding how to make disciples.
It's about what are you actually doing.
Okay, so I kept the Sabbath.
Awesome.
Bare minimum of your life.
Is there fruit in how you keep the Sabbath?
That's when we start talking.
Okay, so you got married.
Fantastic.
The Christian church has a history of having pretty bad marriages.
Divorce rates pretty high.
Sexual addictions, these types of things.
They destroy marriages.
Okay, so bare minimum is you got married.
Anybody can get married.
I can marry you after the service.
You can go to Las Vegas on a plane and get married.
You can go down to the Justice of the Peace and get married.
Good.
Whoop-dee-doo, you got married.
Fantastic.
You can multiply.
You don't even have to be married to multiply.
So good.
There's all these commandments you can keep.
The question is not whether you keep the commandments.
The question is do you actually bear fruit?
Because, again, as we look at the sins versus the virtues, it's a conflicting nature.
There's two natures.
The yetzirah, the evil appetite.
Where does the evil appetite come from?
It comes from the flesh.
Where does the flesh come from?
It shows to partake in the knowledge of good and evil of this world, not of the life of Jesus and his world.
I'm still a man in need of a savior.
Why?
Because until this actual body dies off, you will wrestle and fight with the dueling natures of yourself in this world.
Paul encouraged them to model this, walk this out, bear fruit, be somebody who they say, "That guy is different.
He's one of them.
That lady is different.
One of them."
Bear fruit in your walk.
And he encouraged them that by working hard and bearing fruit, they would not be a burden to others.
This is important, people, because we live in a day and age in a political system where there is a Christ system that's trying to save us.
And quite honestly, it's not a Christ system.
It's actually an anti-Christ system.
It is a system that is trying to tell you that there is a government, an entity, something other than Jesus that can take care of you.
Something other than God's kingdom that can be your currency.
Something other than God's commandments that can be your guide.
We have very two different cultural systems placed in front of us.
And please don't get me wrong.
If you're in this room right now and you're on government assistance or you're on those things, this is not about shame, guilt, or condemnation.
There is none of that in Christ.
I've been on those too.
There's times where you need a hand.
Guess what?
Welcome to the failure of the church and the Christians.
That's what the community of the church was supposed to do, is to be a community to pick each other up in those moments.
But when the church stopped doing it and became more of a system, then the government started to step in.
And when the government steps in, the government is very counter, just like it was in the first century, very counter to what Christ's system is.
Hey, you see each other, be generous, take care of each other, love on each other.
This isn't just financial.
This is in all kinds of different ways.
And then the government steps in and says, "Well, there's a void, so we'll pay for you."
I'm not saying they were buying votes, but who needs a free cell phone?
I mean, and then they call it by the name of a president.
We've gotten past just, "I don't have a meal, I need a meal. I don't have a shirt, I need a shirt. I need a place to sleep tonight."
We've gone past that.
We've gone way past that.
Paul, in his writing to the Thessalonians, says, "Work hard to not be a burden to others."
Whereas our government is trying to create a system where it says, "You don't need to work hard.
It really doesn't matter if you're a burden to others.
Just come and we'll take care of you.
Just come and we'll serve you.
Just come and be here."
This is not what Paul is telling to the Thessalonians.
And it's not just about a job.
Remember, he's talking to a church.
He's talking to a group of believers in a family.
He's saying, "In the church," so I've covered all my political sides.
My Republican, my Independent, my Democratic.
I've been on all sides.
All sides.
Okay, so we've taken care of the world side.
Now let's take care of the church side.
He's actually speaking to the church and he's saying, "Don't be idle and don't be a burden to others."
Laziness creates two immediate problems.
One, it eats into others' earnings or their rewards.
We talked about the culture and the currency of the Lord when we talked about greed last week.
Where everything around you is God's.
It's God's provision and just because He decides to bless you doesn't mean He can't bless someone with the equal amount.
He could bless everybody in the same room with the same amount and He would be fine.
And this isn't like the government who keeps just printing money.
This is God. Everything is His. Through Him is everything.
There's no limited goods or service here.
He can bless everyone.
So He can reward you. He can give you earnings. He can give you gifts.
These aren't just monetary gifts. These are gifts of the Spirit.
One of my favorites is the gift to discern spirits.
It's not one of the most talked about.
We just talk about tongues and everything shuts down for the next 45 weeks.
But the gift of discerning spirits is one of my favorites.
You're just waiting for that one, right?
You've got it marked on your calendar when we start talking about tongues.
We're going to wait, I think, and view that as the very last gift.
Just to make everybody go through all the gifts.
Also, I think the last week of that series falls on Pentecost. Seems perfect.
So, number two, it eats into others' time, energy, and attention.
How many of us think about that?
We're like, "Ah, I just don't want to do this."
A lot of times we'll think about money or we'll talk about possessions.
But what about when you start eating into other people's time or mental capabilities or their energy
and you place a higher importance--what deadly sin do we see that on?
You place a higher importance on your time, your energy, your attention than someone else's.
Thus, placing the burden on them or passing the burden onto them.
Laziness is not a sin that just affects the person who's walking in the practice.
"Well, I can be lazy."
And that's not going to affect you at all.
Yeah, that's not true.
If I'm walking in laziness, then there's things I'm not doing that would have an adverse effect on you.
Just the same way if we're in a family.
If I'm walking in laziness and I'm like, "I don't need to take out the trash, children. Listen up.
Your parents have sent me for such a time as this."
When you're in a house, there's functions of a house.
When you're in a church, there's functions of a church.
All of them are interconnected with each other.
If you have problems in your house, I promise you, you will exhibit problems in the church.
And whether you admit it or not, I see it.
And we're just waiting for the right time to talk about it.
Because when you have problems in your home, i.e., we need to take the trash out.
That way we don't have ants or we don't have roaches or we don't have these types of things in our house.
There's consequences for laziness.
So if my children don't take out the garbage, one of two things happens.
Somebody else has to pick up that burden and take out the trash.
Which in my house, I'm way too OCD, so my wife or I are going to do it.
Or you didn't know that you were going to be a property manager, did you?
Because at that point in time, you potentially are renting to mice.
You're potentially renting to all kinds of insects.
Tanya's over here, she's like, "I'm going home and spraying every place."
Immediately her face is like, "She's talking about vermin."
But you immediately become a property manager to unwanted guests in your home.
If you don't clean your bathroom, what happens?
You get mold in your tub.
What can mold do?
Mold can cause respiratory issues.
It can cause health issues.
It could cause itself to permeate up through the timbers and the drywall
and the things in your house.
What happens if you don't clean your toilet on a regular basis?
We're in Oklahoma.
A lot of people have well water.
So at the very least, you're going to have the calcium buildups in the toilet,
which really just looks like somebody had a really interesting funnel of,
number one, with the clean waters.
And so there's a calcium buildup that's there.
Everybody's like, "Oh, I can't believe he's saying it."
I'm saying everything you guys have witnessed or you already know exists.
So, like, calm down.
You're being too loud.
Let's be real.
There's consequences when we don't do little things.
And I say those things because if we're talking about cleaning a toilet
or taking out the trash or cleaning a shower,
how much more is it when we're talking about sexual desire or gluttony or thievery
or big things?
Well, I mean, I just happen to believe that you don't wake up one morning
and all of a sudden just decide, "Today I'm going to become a bank robber.
Today I'm going to become an adulterer.
Today I'm going to become a murderer.
Today I'm going to be--" Little by little, these things progress.
These thoughts come in and they creep in, and little by little,
they champion you and you give way to them and you give way to them.
Little by little, if my son doesn't take the trash out on day one,
I can promise you by the end of the week if there's no correction in that,
he won't be taking out the trash at all.
Little by little, the burdens affect other people.
This is opposite of what Luke has told us to do.
When you pull resources and you become a burden on the collective body,
whether it's your family or it's the church,
this is opposite of what Luke tells us in Acts 2.
A lot of people in this church, they know that because we spend a lot of time
and it revolutionized where this church was going.
But in Acts 2, Luke outlines four key elements for a healthy church community.
"And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
And awe came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders
were being done through the apostles.
And all who believed together and had all things in common,
and they were selling their possessions and belongings
and distributing the proceeds to all as they had need.
And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes,
they received their food with gladness and generous heart,
praising God and having favor with all the people.
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
The early church family were selling their possessions
and bringing the resources that God had provided them to the congregation,
a covenantal relationship or bringing things together.
There's a responsibility on all parties.
They were bringing those resources, and any person who had a need that was out there,
they were attempting to fill the need with those resources.
Churches, a lot of people out there who have needs.
There's people who have physical disabilities, mental disabilities.
There's real needs that are out in this world.
There's financial gaps. There's health gaps.
These are people who were born into environments.
They were born with certain things that are there. There's real needs.
So when you just decide, "I'm just not going to show up.
I'm just not going to do something," and now you all of a sudden have needs.
"Well, I'm not going to go to work."
"But yet it's my responsibility to pay your bills."
"Well, I'm just not going to eat healthy."
"Oh, so now you want me to pray for healing
while you literally ate yourself into where you're at
or you drank yourself into where you're at or whatever the situation is."
There's real burdens and needs that happen.
We see this in all the feasts and the festivals,
that there were people who had needs and burdens.
You don't glean the corners of your field
so that the people who had nothing could participate and eat.
It doesn't say those who are a part of the inner circle
all of a sudden just decided it was too hard.
"So I'm just going to go ahead and walk around to the edge of the corners
and I'm going to be the one who gleans."
No, there are circumstances that sometimes happen in your life
that are outside of your control that cause you to be in those seasons.
And God has provided a way for Him to take care of you in those seasons.
But when you are the one who puts yourself in those circumstances,
why is God the first person we call?
"God, I just really need help making sure I pay my mortgage this week."
"Yet I've refused to get up. I've refused to get a job."
"I refuse to do anything."
"God, it would just be really, really great if I could lose another five pounds
while I sit here eating donuts, drinking all kinds of dairy, and refusing to exercise."
"God, it would be really, really great if my blood pressure would go down
while you do everything to keep your stress level up."
"God, it would be really, really great if you could help me
and provide a miracle and healing for my finances, and yet you spend your money."
See, that's one of the biggest things. It's not that you don't have a job.
It's that you spend your money on $5 coffees or on $30 meals
when you could have had a beautiful steak at home for $10.
I can do it for $10. I promise you.
You'd be amazed what our budget is on food in a month with having seven people,
including a kid who just shot up for the first time.
By the way, I'm so thankful Jude shot up.
Whew!
Bro. Yeah.
His 7- to 8-year-old brother being the same height as him,
and all of a sudden he went like two shoe sizes in like four months.
If you know any place that's hiring overnight, come find me,
especially with grocery discounts, because Build Back Better is just making me cry.
Remember that pride, lust, gluttony, and greed are all sins,
and selfishness and laziness is no different.
It's placing a higher importance upon yourself, your needs, your thoughts, than others.
Worship team, you can come back.
I've got 15 minutes left, so it's a perfect time.
It was an ongoing joke backstage this morning as we were praying that--
You're not ready?
That's why I gave you a 15-minute heads up before Ephraim starts writing stuff on the confidence monitor again.
He has not been lazy with making sure that I understand what's going on in his thought process back there.
And he's got Isabel next to him, so they're probably having a grand old time.
But in 2 Thessalonians 3, 11, we see Paul get snarky.
Oh, never get snarky in the Bible, but Paul gets snarky, and he says,
"For we hear that some among you walk in idleness."
"We hear that some among you walk in idleness."
That's passive aggressive, because he knows full well if he's writing this that there's already people who are lazy.
He's like, "For we hear that some among you walk in idleness."
Not busy at work. That's quantifiable.
Make sure he has all the information that he needs.
Not busy at work, but busy bodies.
Ain't nobody in the church preaching the gospel of gossip, I promise you.
Paul says you're a liar, though.
Because if you're walking in idleness and you're not busy working,
that you are engaging in being a busy body, because you've got too much time on your hands.
He's talking to the church.
This is not the CEO of a company asking somebody to show up to work.
This is Paul talking to believers in a church.
If you are idle, you're not busy at work, and you're a busy body.
Can anybody show me the commandment where God tells us we should be busy bodies?
No? Okay.
So obviously being a busy body is not a good thing.
So when we're walking in idleness, which we're told not to,
that we can become a busy body, a gossiper, somebody who shares information that's not true.
This normally stirs up strife and slander and drama.
Continues the trauma cycle that's there.
All because we're idle. We're not busy doing something.
So if we're not busy working for the kingdom of God,
then we're against the kingdom of God by sowing discord through gossip or being busy bodies,
getting involved in people's stuff that we shouldn't.
Anybody who's been around the church over the last year knows that I have said repeatedly in our plans
what does the Lord want, how are we going to do this?
The more this church gets engaged in regularly doing things, doing things, Bible things,
whether that's outreach, going out and feeding the homeless,
whether that's getting in the word of God or having prayer times or times of worship,
the more we do those things, the less time we have to be considered idle
and take on burdens of people or gossip of people or random thoughts of people.
If we have a lot of time, we start looking around and we start looking around,
we're like, "Oh, I wonder what's going on in that person's life."
And then we maybe not know it, but we're going to create something.
When you're busy sowing into God's kingdom something that is greater than yourself
and you spend less time sitting around,
God actually comes and uses you to multiply His Spirit versus you multiplying your own.
Yet in 1 Thessalonians, Paul actually goes a step further and he says,
"Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness."
This isn't just calling them out. This isn't even just passive aggressive.
He's giving you a clear thing.
If this person is walking in idleness, you're supposed to stay away from them
and not in accord with the tradition that you've received from us,
that this person is doing the opposite of the teaching of the apostles
for what this church should be doing.
So not only is he snarky, not only is he giving a warning,
not only is he pointing out, but he's giving a very direct thing.
If people are operating in this, you need to stay away from them.
No fruit can come from that.
So how do we tackle laziness?
This isn't something that just happens overnight.
You have to create new good habits.
You could say, "Well, I've been delivered from laziness."
Bare fruit. Like, go to work on time tomorrow.
Like, stay five minutes late. Put an extra effort in.
"Oh, well, it's not my chore."
Talking to you. Yeah, talking to you.
All y'all. All y'all.
I can't talk at them the whole entire time.
Sometimes I have to get my parenting points across in my sermon.
Jeez.
But if somebody's not doing their chores at the house,
if the husband isn't picking up his fair share,
or the wife isn't picking up their fair share,
then do you really respect and love the other person?
Because you're taking your burden, you're casting it on them.
So how do we tackle it?
One, set realistic goals that push you to do something new,
but they're actually obtainable.
Don't set some unrealistic goal.
If you've never taken the trash out,
don't say, "Every morning at 8 o'clock, I'm going to take the trash out."
You will end up in marriage counseling.
"I'm going to help you take the trash out this week."
Let's set that goal.
Well, I mean, you live like 45 minutes away,
so I'm not actually giving you like an IOU.
Just making sure we're on the same page,
because I don't want you to go home and be very upset, okay?
Number two, set accountability partners to support you
in reaching that goal and overcoming obstacles.
Guys, gals, if you don't have accountability partners in your life,
you're going to fail at some point in time,
because the flesh will overcome at some point.
It's inevitable.
So if you don't place people in your life who can hold you accountable,
who already bear fruit in an area you don't,
you're already setting yourself up for failure.
Look for the person who does work hard
and ask them, "Hey, I'm really struggling to be consistent in my work ethic.
Do you think you could mentor me in that area?
Do you think you could just check up on me in that area?"
And then answer your phone.
What good is an accountability partner when you're like,
"Oh, I leave my phone on do not disturb the whole entire time."
No, the truth is that you're a liar.
You just don't want accountability.
You're just taking the facade.
Number three, don't expect yourself to be perfect.
This is one of the things I see a lot of people,
and it's not just exclusive with laziness.
They recognize there's an issue, and then they're like,
"I have to fix this. I have to fix this."
And then they stumble.
And they're like, "Oh, I'm such a failure."
No, you're not.
You just had 30 little wins when before you had maybe one little win.
That's growth.
Stop rebuking yourself and speaking negatively over yourself
that somehow you didn't live up to an unrealistic goal.
Set a realistic goal and speak life into that.
When I was younger and my wife and I were earlier on in our marriage,
the goal was not that we wouldn't fight.
The goal is that the tone of the fight would change.
The frequency of the fight would change.
How we made up would change.
I wouldn't drive around the neighborhood,
which was my way to decompress,
which is her way of saying, "He's abandoning me."
And when we're like, "Okay, little wins. Let's not do these things."
We still fought. We still fought. We still fought.
Twenty years later, we barely ever fight.
When we do, they're like World War XVII.
But they last 30 minutes, and we're both like,
"All right, can we just get to the make-up part?"
Because we get gelato.
Or ice cream. That's how we make up.
So just making sure we're all on the same page.
Great place over by Robinson.
Great place in Robinson Square.
Number five, acknowledge accomplishments even when they're small.
And by acknowledging the accomplishments that you have in there,
you're still speaking life over the good things you are doing,
even though you might not be in perfection.
There still might be some things you're wrestling with.
And by acknowledging the accomplishments, even when they're small,
it helps you to overcome failures.
Because you are going to fail.
If you go back and you look at the history of Steve Jobs
and all these people that are there, you're going to fail.
The question is not if you're going to fail.
The question is what are you going to do with your failure.
Number six, ask for help when you're stuck.
Maybe that's your spouse. Maybe that's a friend,
a partner, an ability partner.
When you get stuck and you feel like you can't go forward,
I'm in a rut. I don't want to get out of bed today.
I'm in a rut. I don't want to work hard today.
I'm in a rut. My sinus is.
Ask for somebody to help you when you're stuck.
I know a lot of people in this room.
If you need somebody to put a foot up your backside on something,
whether it's metaphorical or it's physical, they will do it.
And they'll do it in love. And they'll be there to help you.
But you have to ask for help when you're stuck.
You have to ask for help.
Number seven, remove distractions.
If it doesn't help you meet the goal, then it's not good for your soul.
If it doesn't help you meet the goal, it's not good for your soul.
If the goal is to walk more like Christ,
Genesis to Revelation and the commandments,
then looking and listening and reading things
that don't bring life to the commandments
aren't good to help you meet the goal.
If you're trying to have a better work ethic,
watching television is not good to meet the goal.
If you want to learn more about God,
you better turn off Bluey, even when it's sleepy time.
Because it doesn't help you meet the goal.
He said to them, "Go into the world and preach the gospel to all creation."
That requires you to do something.
Ephraim, I'm wrapping up.
I'm growing too. I'm growing too.
It requires you to do something.
There's a physical person and there's a spiritual person.
If your physical person struggles with a physical work ethic,
to be on time, to do the work, to help out your spouse,
if you can't help out your spouse and help out your family and your home,
what makes you think you're going to have any involvement in helping the church?
You won't.
If you can't show up and go to work,
nobody in the church should feel like they could count on you
to show up and do work here.
If you're in a physical rut of laziness,
I can tell you you're also in a spiritual rut.
Which means what you're trying to combat with your physical
also has a spiritual component to it.
You can try to take care of the physical portion,
but if you're not going to also take care of the spiritual portion,
you're not going to be able to be set free from that habitual issue you have.
But God has told us that we are not to be lazy.
God has told us that we are to work for His kingdom.
God has told us that we are to provide for our households.
And don't hide behind the Sabbath.
"I can't get a job. They want me to work on the Sabbath."
Before the Sabbath, He said, "Work."
Now, it would be great if you could keep both, if you could do both.
That's His intention. That's His desire for you.
But if you're about ready to lose your house, or you're about ready to lose your wife,
or your husband, or whatever, because you can't put food on the table,
or you're not doing something, work!
Plow the garden. Tend to the plants.
Work on your marriages, on your relationships, raising your children,
and also the relationship of the peers inside the church.
Stand with me, church.
[music]
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