Embracing Diligence: Overcoming Laziness in Life

Devotional

Sermon Summary

Bible Study Guide

Sermon Clips



The Book of Proverbs describes the lazy person as the sluggard the sluggard not a very contemporary word but quite a good word it is defined by the dictionary as one who is habitually lazy or habitually inactive they have determined a lifestyle that is framed essentially by indolence and by inactivity. [00:03:27]

The sluggard is hinged to his bed hinged to his bed verse 14 of Proverbs 26 says as a door turns on his hinges saw a sluggard turns on his bed he doesn't merely enjoy his bed he stuck to his bed he has if you like in graphic terms two slots in his bag which have been perfectly created to fit into the hinges on his bed. [00:04:41]

He never actually refuses to do anything he just puts it off bit by bit he deceives himself into thinking that he will get round to it but by minutes small increments of time by minutes and by inches this individual he or she allows opportunity just to slip away. [00:05:59]

The individual who has no mind to work the individual who doesn't want to work never lacks for excuses for their idleness if inside of them they have no desire to engage in Endeavor and incidentally in the New Testament Paul says in first Thessalonians that part of the responsibility of the pastor is to warn the idol. [00:07:39]

The lazy man does not roast his game but the diligent man prizes his possessions why doesn't he roast his game well perhaps because he never got his game said after hunt and as he began to hunt he may even shot the thing or pierced it with an arrow and then he said I'm not going over there for that. [00:09:35]

The lazy person will always be hungry for fulfillment his Cravings will always be unfulfilled the desire says Solomon 21 25 the desire of the sluggard kills him because his hands refuse to labor he knows that he would love to have that he knows what's involved in getting there but he doesn't want to do it. [00:13:54]

The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly in other words he regards himself as something of a genius he scorns his friends who are working hard he believes himself to have found the key to learning without any inconvenient exertion. [00:14:56]

The picture here is Comic but it is also tragic and we should not allow the comedic aspect of it to prevent us from recognizing just how tragic it is hinged to the bed happy with excuse hopeless and completing things hungry for fulfillment and ultimately haughty in my opinion of myself. [00:17:02]

I went past the field of the sluggard verse 30 past the vineyard of the man who likes judgment Thorns had come up everywhere the ground was covered with weeds and the stone wall was in Ruins so his approach to life has paid its dividends we go past this house we say either there is no one living in that house. [00:17:40]

Indolence is one of the vices from which Those whom it once infects are seldom reformed every other species of luxury operates upon some appetite that is quickly satisfied and requires some concurrence of art or accident which every place will not supply in other words if we had a craving for eating uh tubs of peaches. [00:18:16]

The lapse to indolence is soft and imperceptible because it is only a mere cessation of activity but the return to diligence is difficult because it implies a change from rest to motion from privation to reality everybody who has ever engaged in an exercise program knows this is the case. [00:20:00]

The real issue about this and the real tragedy of the man's house is that laziness is not an infirmity laziness is a sin God made us to work indeed six days you shall labor and do all your work but the seventh is a Sabbath to the Lord and the Contemporary quest for leisure feeds on indolence. [00:21:43]

Ask a question about this sermon