He also that is slothful in his
work is brother to him that is a great waster. That is slack. The word slothful is slack or
it means to leave something undone. It is to abandon your work. And here, that person is compared
to someone who is a waster, not that you waste. You're wasteful. And the way we normally use that,
it means you're a destroyer, a spoiler. Someone that ruins
things. In one case, necessary work never
gets done. And in the other case, work that
has been done gets ruined or spoiled. So you see why they're
called brothers. Now these descriptions in the
Proverbs, these names like slothful and waster,
as we've said before, they're not certain types of people,
they're people. sinners Usually when these Proverbs refer
To the slothful or the scorner or the tailbearer we just saw
recently and so on All of us can think of at least someone
that fits that bill That is characterized by those things and the person that we're thinking
of when we think of a tailbearer or Some of these other things
scorner Those are just people who are
eaten up with it a little bit more than others they're characterized
by those things But these are all characteristics of the sinful
part Generally speaking People do
their work Slothful in his work Generally speaking people do
whatever their work is because they have to because they need
money And so they do what is necessary
And often they do the very minimum that's necessary to get paid
and That's what it's all about to them, to get paid. And there's
nothing wrong with working for that reason, to support your
family. But those people are usually
pretty miserable. If that's all that you work for,
you're usually gonna be pretty miserable. Whereas if a person
can see their job, their work, as part of a bigger picture,
And this is the earthly example. We're gonna talk about the spiritual,
Lord, well, in a minute here. If you can see whatever your
job is as part of a bigger picture, see it as an accomplishment of
a necessary business that you're in on, that you're part of, then
take some pride. If you can take some pride in
your work, you can't control what other people do. but you're
conscientious about what you do. Not always easy, I know. But you'll be happier. Your boss
will be happier. And you'll almost certainly advance
in that company or another one because of your dedication to
what you do. It's a whole lot harder. This
is what most people will probably never realize. It's a lot harder
just to get by and be miserable. It's harder. To be slothful or to be a waster,
you have to not care. And that's a terrible trait. It doesn't matter what you do.
Care. If nobody else does, if it's
unpopular to care, if people are going to make fun of you
for caring, care. If you don't care, for example,
if you make good grades or not, or if you don't care whether
your work is done efficiently, You're hurting yourself a lot
more than you are anybody else. Teach your children, you parents,
when they say, well, I'm not ever gonna use algebra anyway.
Is there ever a child that didn't say that? I'm never gonna use
algebra anyway. Make them understand that it's
not so much the math itself that they need to know. What they're
really learning is how to solve problems. You're always gonna
use that. What you're really learning is
how to overcome obstacles and difficulties, how to succeed
when it's not fun. A lot of things in life are not
fun, but they're important, they're vital. Learn that early, teach
them that early. You may not ever solve for X
again in your life, but you're gonna solve. You're gonna solve
for love. Anything that helps you become
a solver and not a waster is time well spent. And the lesson of this verse
that's primary, as in all scripture, is a spiritual one. But let me
be clear about this. The spiritual and the temporal
go hand in hand. They go hand in hand. You're
not just magically gonna be earnest and diligent in spiritual matters
if you're slothful in all other matters. That's the teaching
of scripture all through. The church is a work. You see
the word work in our text? You're work. If you're a part
of the church, if you're a member of God's church, and I don't
mean You're on some roll of list of names associated with this
particular place. I'm not talking about that. If
the Lord has translated you into the kingdom of his dear son, if he has added you to the church
by saving you, If he ordained you to eternal
life and brought you into his fold, this is your work. The work of God, our Lord said,
is that you believe on his son. That's what this place is all
about. I'm here this morning because
I believe on his son. And you know what I'm here for?
To believe on his side. And the work that God has given
his people, his sheep, his church is to go and preach. And every
one of them are in on that. What we're doing right now, and
there's no more important work. But again, this is about who
you are. This is about the kind of person
that you are. And I'm not talking about what
this world calls church. That's probably not even necessary
to say. This world's church is a circus
and it's an entertainment venue. And as I've said to you before,
it's not a very good one. I'd a whole lot rather go to
a movie or go to a real circus or a zoo. Let's go to the zoo,
you know. a beautiful animal in his natural
habitat. That's fascinating. A self-righteous
sinner is not beautiful. And their natural habitat is
a boring and pretentious place. Full of death and religious pretense. This is a work. Believers are
compared to soldiers, farmers, and commercial fishermen. Can
you think of three things, any other thing that would be harder
than those three in this world? More difficult, more requiring
of commitment. If you're a farmer, you're all
in. You don't work, you don't eat. Same with fishing, it's
a numbers game. God has made it that way. And
a soldier, that goes without saying. So that's what we're compared to
in this world, in the scriptures. That's a clear and evident and
helpful and unmistakable, those are examples that are just, you
can't mistake them. The exhortations to God's church
in the scriptures. You know what they are? There
are many exhortations regarding the church. And here are the
words that are used to encourage and motivate and exhort us. Strive. Strive. Romans 15 30. Endeavor. Ephesians 4.3. Run, run, run. That's in Hebrews 12.1. And these
are all used in the sense that we're considering them. In the
ministry, as a child of God. In his service, labor, 2 Timothy
2.6. Endure. 2 Timothy 2.10. Suffer. 2 Timothy 2.12. Build. 1 Corinthians 3.10. Fight. 1 Timothy 6.12. See a pattern here? Something else is clear too.
The Lord don't need us. He don't need you. He don't need
me. And I want to be real clear about
that too. But what an honor that he would
use us. What an incredible honor. Turn with me to two passages
of scripture in closing. Matthew 10, five. Matthew 10 5 these 12 Jesus sent
forth and commanded them saying Go not into the way of the Gentiles
and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not But go rather to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel and as you go preach Saying
the kingdom of heaven is at hand Preach That's primary. Preach the gospel
of the kingdom and heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the
dead, cast out devils. We saw a glimpse of the purpose
of that, and we see it in the book of Acts. It was to confirm
the word of the Lord as it was being preached, but we saw that
in 1 Kings, didn't we, when the widow woman When her son was
raised to life, she said, now I know that you're a man of God
and that the words that you speak are the word of God, the truth
of God. And that's why the Lord gave
these abilities. And then he said this, freely
you have received, freely give. You know, it wouldn't be the
most pleasant thing in the world to go around healing the sick.
It'd be kind of exciting though, wouldn't it? to make people that
happy, that'd be enjoyable, I would think. But not the easiest of
work, casting out devils. And he said to them, freely you
have received, you've received the ability to do this, and so
you freely give. You do it without expecting any
payment for it or any recompense for doing that. You can imagine
how grateful people might be having a devil cast out of their
child or something like that. He said, you've received freely,
you freely give. In fact, don't take your life
savings with you. Provide neither gold nor silver
nor brass in your purses, nor script. Don't even take your
lunchbox with you for your journey. Neither two
coats, neither shoes, nor yet stays. Don't take a backup. Just the clothes on your body
right now, that's it. For the workman, the work is worthy of his meat. the Lord
will provide for you. Can I say it again? You will
never be the loser for honoring the Lord Jesus Christ in this
world. It's important to remember that,
because we're selfish, aren't we? We're selfish. 2 Timothy 2.15, let's look at that
and we'll be through. 2nd Timothy 2 15 Study to show thyself approved
unto God a Workman Now we understand that that Paul is writing this to
Timothy, he was a preacher. Paul was a preacher, Timothy's
a preacher, and that's the primary context of this. A workman that
needeth not to be ashamed. A workman that's ashamed is one
that doesn't get the work done. Rightly dividing the word of
truth, your work is in the word, in the gospel. The tools of your labor, what you use in honoring Christ
in this world is his word. It causes you to have the attitude
that you have toward everything that you have an attitude about.
Right there. It causes you to act the way
you do because your priorities are His glory and not self-promotion or flattering the flesh. Your
priority is the souls of men, not them liking you. Study. That word study is of course
studying the Word of God because he says rightly dividing the
word of truth and But the definition of the word study there is interesting,
and I think it speaks to our text. And it's something for
us to consider now when it comes to the ministry, the work that
the Lord's given us to do. We don't work to establish a
righteousness before God. We don't go about to establish
our own righteousness by anything that we do. Christ is the end
of the law for righteousness. Because by God's grace, we believe
on Him. He's our righteousness. But because
He is freely all that we need, He sends us. He sends us to tell others about
Him, to be witnesses of Him in this world. But here's the whole definition.
This is the whole definition in Strong's, at least in concordance, Of the word study, it means to
hasten, to make haste. We're talking
about now a workman for the Lord. Make haste, exert yourself. Do you understand exert yourself?
I can do a lot of things, like actually get things done without
really exerting myself. How about you? I'm just kind
of like, ah, here we go, you know? But sometimes, some things
can't get done like that. This is one of them. You're gonna have to jump in. Exert yourself. Here's the next
word in the definition, endeavor. It's not just gonna happen. What's
just gonna happen is you're gonna be a waster. That's what just
happens. When we are not, by God's grace,
determined to know nothing save Him, to honor Him in all that
we do, to serve Him in any way that we see that we possibly
can. The woman that did what she could,
she just had a box of ointment that was worth a lot of money
and she broke that in order to honor him. And then here's the last two
words in that definition. Let me start over and just read
all of it. To hasten, to make haste, to exert oneself, endeavor,
give diligence. How many things, again, even
on your job, you can do it without giving diligence to it. You can
just kind of get by, you know, and just kind of fake it or be half asleep. Give diligence. Be the absolute
best at it. Care. all the while realizing that
we're nothing. And it's the privilege of God
to do anything for him. There is necessity placed upon
a pastor in this regard. Otherwise, because it's included
in the definition of what it is to be a pastor. But do you ever think of the
ministry this way? Let's pray.