Proverbs 16, 26, he that laboreth,
laboreth for himself, for his mouth craveth it of him. Now, this is a principle that
applies in every, in everyday life, every day, every moment,
for everybody. He that laboreth, laboreth for
himself, for his mouth craveth it of him. To work, to labor,
in order to be sustained and fed and healthy and establish
a home in this world is not a result of the fall. Many are mistaken
about that. It is not a consequence of our
sin that we work. The Lord told Adam to dress and
keep the garden before there was ever sin in this world. Genesis
2.15, and the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden
of Eden to dress it and to keep it. I'm not sure why the word
there is translated dress, because if you look it up in the original
Hebrew, that word means work. It literally means work, to work,
and to keep it, to work it. Now that was before sin. Then
here's what the Lord said after Adam sinned, also having to do
with labor. Genesis 3.17, and unto Adam he
said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and
hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying thou
shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow
shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. You ever wonder why,
ever wish your tomatoes grew like weeds grow? I've never seen
a tomato plant growing out of the crack between my driveway
and the road, have you? They'll grow anywhere. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it,
thorns and thistles, verse 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt
thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground. For out of it
wast thou taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return. So it's not work itself that's
bad or vain or even unpleasant. There's nothing unpleasant about
work itself. Even under the curse, there is
a satisfaction in hard work that has results. But as a result of sin and the
curse, work is not what it was before. It's tough, it's grueling,
it's a struggle. The earth itself is working against
you, not like before. It's not just a matter either
of the earth being cursed and not producing like it did before
the fall. Because of man's sin, every kind
of work, It's vain and mostly a drudgery. It's grueling, it's
difficult. Now our text, I want to point
this out too. Our text doesn't say that a man
doesn't work for his family when it says he that laboreth laboreth
for himself. That's not a selfish thing. It's just, that's the truth of
it. Laboring for your family is laboring for yourself. It's
for your own self-interest that you labor, including your family.
And whatever good you're able to do as a believer, by God's
grace, relative good that you're able to do with whatever you
earn. So it's not saying that. It's
simply saying that man works to make money, to buy beans,
to get the strength, to work, to make money, to buy beans,
to get the strength, to work. That's man's lot in this life. And I know that there are exceptions
in that people don't work and still get money, but somebody
worked for it. So the principle holds true. This is what Solomon wrote about.
Solomon, speaking of the vanity of life without Christ, wrote
this in Ecclesiastes 6-7. Listen carefully to this. Ecclesiastes
6, 7, all the labor of man is for his mouth. It's to consume
and to stay alive. And yet, the appetite is not
filled. It's never, you can never just
say, well, I've worked enough. And I'm just gonna eat. So think about this. Before the
fall, work was pleasant and good and
rewarding and fulfilling, honest and wholesome. Dressing and keeping
the garden was not a drudgery. There was no sin, no consequences
of sin. Bugs didn't make holes in your
food, and birds didn't come and take it away and eat it, and
squirrels and things like that. It just didn't happen that way.
There was plenty for every creature. After the fall, work is still
necessary, but now it's grievous, it's vain. It's unfulfilling. It's never enough. It's never
really perfect, is it? It's unproductive. I worked since I was, before I even graduated
high, I don't even remember, I was probably in junior high
when I started working. I think I worked four or five
years before I graduated high school until I was, I guess,
40 something, just as a laborer in this world. And you know what
I accomplished? Absolutely nothing, except the
obvious. I was able to support myself
and my family. That's what it was. But as far
as making some big splash on the world, They just didn't that way. They
just didn't that way. So before the fall, work, wonderful,
fulfilling, desirable. After the fall, not so much,
not so much. But that's not the end of the
story. There is an after, after the fall. When a man in Christ Jesus is
more than a conqueror over the sin into which we fell in the
garden, he's more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus, physical labor
becomes a blessing again. It's a blessing again, and when
I say it's fame, this world works, and I'm not saying they're not
successful. I'm just saying that what they call blessings are
a curse if they don't have Christ. It's just the truth. But in Christ
Jesus, physical labor even is a blessing. It's a blessing of
the Lord. It's a gift. It's something that we're thankful
for, though the effects of the fall are all still there. We're still gonna sweat. When
a sinner, though, works as unto the Lord, as we're taught to
do as believers in this world, though all the hardships of labor
under the curse apply and are present, yet work now is worship. It truly is worship. If it's
done for the glory of God, It's done in gratitude. It's an acknowledgment
of the curse of sin. It's a bowing to that. When we
work and labor in this world, it's an acknowledgment
of the curse, but also an agreement with it. Those who steal and are dishonest
and try to try to get by in this world without working. The ones
I've known that have done that worked harder to not work than
they would have if they had just worked. And of course, they risk the
consequences of that every day. Even the temporal consequences
of it. But we bow to the fact, as we
do honest, labor in this world, we bow to the fact that we're
consigned to that for now, for a reason. It's service to God and not men. As unto the Lord, if we could
just work as unto the Lord, that's a simple thing, but very elusive. There's thanksgiving in the heart
unto God, because though we bear temporal consequences of our
sin, we're provided by God a means of sustaining ourselves and our
family. And it's a reminder. It ought
to be a reminder as we labor in this world and we're sweating
and whatever it is we're doing, we get tired of it. You may be
in an air-conditioned building doing it, so there may not be
a whole lot of physical sweat, but you know what this word sweat
means. It means it don't just come easy
anymore. There's different kinds of sweat. And as that's happening and you're
sick to your stomach of all of the treachery and foolishness
that comes with working in this world, remember this. It ought
to remind us that we will never, ever truly suffer the true consequences
of our sin. We're bearing some consequences
of it in this world, but we're never going to suffer the true
consequences of our sin ever in this life or the life to come
if we're in Christ. And our labor in this world ought
to be a reminder of that. The consequences of our sin is
eternal death. Those that say, because they
go through some tough things in this world, I'm suffering
for my sins, don't know what sin is or its consequences. But because of Christ's labor,
his work for us, our work is a blessing, even now, even with
the the temporal consequences of the fall fully in place. Now here's the New Testament
exhortation to believers regarding working and eating as a believer
in 2 Thessalonians 3.10. I'd have you turn, and you can
certainly turn to these if you're quick. But I didn't want to go
too long, but listen to 2 Thessalonians 3.10. For even when we were with
you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither
should he eat." Now it's clear from the next
couple of verses here why Paul is particularly addressing that
in the church at Thessalonica. If a man, if any, would not work,
neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some
which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Those two things always go together. I was just telling Vicki the
other day, something, I forget what it was now, and it doesn't
matter, I wouldn't tell you if I did remember. It would just
be a distraction, but you've experienced this yourself. Something
was happening, somebody was doing or saying something, And it was
not anybody we know. It was just something that we
heard. I can't remember if it was on the news or whatever.
And I said, you know, some people just have too much time on their
hands. If you really are worried about that, then you've got too much time
on your hands. They go together. If you don't work, if you've
got nothing to do, then what you're going to do is just stir
up stuff. Think about stupid stuff that
you can complain about and find fault with. I honestly, before God, don't have
time for that, and I'm thankful. I don't have time for that. And
if I did, I hope that I wouldn't be like that by God's grace.
But you see how that goes together, working not at all, But boy,
you're all about everybody else and what they're doing wrong. Always goes together. Now them that are such, we command
and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ. What does this have to
do with Christ? Everything. Everything. Them that are such, We command and exhort by our
Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work. Put your head down
and do what's in front of you to do and shut it. You know how
many problems that would solve in the church and in the world? That with quietness they work
and eat their own bread. You see our text there? It's not a bad thing that we
work because our mouth craves it. It's necessary. It's what God has given us to
do in this world. We're made to work, we're built
to work. We have hands unlike almost any
other creature in the world so we can work with them. Then though most importantly There is spiritual labor and
This is the after after the fall before the fall Work was a wholesome
and godly wonderful fulfilling Fruitful there was never any
grief about it. There was never any any drudgery
to it, but then after the fall, it's all about that. It just
is. But then after, after the fall, in Christ, yeah, it's still a
drudgery to the flesh, but what a blessing that God has given
us something to do and the ability to do it. What a blessing that
is. That's worship. It's worship
to do what Paul exhorted here. Just put your head down and in
quietness, do what God has given you to do and eat your own bread. Enjoy, by God's grace, the results
of your labor in this world. And then there's, as part of
the after the fall, there's spiritual labor, which we never entered
into until we entered into the kingdom
of God by our Lord Jesus Christ, by being born of the Spirit and
seeing and entering into his kingdom. We never, there was
no spiritual labor. We were spiritually dead. in
Adam, but we entered by Christ into the kingdom of God, and
so we, as he did, as he said, we have meat to eat that this
world knows not of. It's as real and even more vital
than our physical food. There is a laboring that results
in complete satisfaction. After the fall, that doesn't
happen unless there's an after that, even, of being in Christ
Jesus and seeing him and what he did. We are not sustained. In other
words, we do not live by bread alone. We work for our bread, and we
eat our bread, but we don't live by that alone. That's not life. We live by every word that proceedeth
from the mouth of God. That's why we're here this morning. The gospel is life. To whom shall we go, thou hast
the words of eternal life. The gospel is our true food and
drink. The gospel, Christ is our meat
and drink indeed. He said, if you eat not my flesh
and drink my blood, there's no life in you, you have no life.
No matter how hard you work and how much money you make and how
fine you eat in this world, you're damned. Christ is our meat and drink
indeed in so much that we say with Job, I have esteemed the
words of his mouth more than my necessary food. That's the
right way to esteem the gospel because it is more. It's more
necessary. Christ is the one thing needful
to the point where people say, well, I've got to work. No, you
don't. Got to eat. No, you don't. I've got to have
water. No, you don't. You may not ever
take another drink. What you need is Christ. And
if you never do any of the things that this world says are necessary
ever again, If you have Christ, you have everything. So the futility and the vanity
that Solomon wrote of is done away in Christ. This world is
exactly the way he described it. Vanity and vexation of spirit. But the Lord Jesus Christ says,
I am the bread of life. Our text talks about bread, talks
about the mouth fulfilling the hunger. The Lord Jesus said,
I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never
hunger. And he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. Always hungering and thirsting
for him, but always fulfilled. never going without. That's satisfaction. Our text speaks of craving. Christ
speaks of satisfaction. Our text speaks of labor. Christ
says, come and rest. Amen.