Laziness Strikes Back
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The Lazy Bird
The Lazy Bird
For a while in my life, I was a licensed falconer.
That meant, I trained birds of prey, hawks, and falcons.
And you’d be surprised how easy it is to make bird lazy.
We would fly our birds free, this meant that they could fly away at anytime.
One of the ways that we train a bird to come back to us, is by putting a small amount of meat on our glove.
We’d hold up the glove to the bird, the bird would spot the meat, and fly to you knowing that there is a little snack on the end of the meat.
My goal when I was a falconer wasn’t to have birds just fly to my glove.
My goal was to go hunting with the bird.
It was a sport, and I wanted to challenge myself and the bird to catch big game.
Things that were a challenge for the bird.
Heres where the laziness could kick in.
For my bird to hunt, it takes effort.
She has to be alert.
She has to fly hard.
Sometimes she would slam into bushes and possibly break feathers.
Watching a bird on a jack rabbit is like watching a man on the back of a bull in a rodeo.
They get thrashed around.
But suppose my bird learned, that every time it sat in a tree and didn’t hunt, suppose it learned that whenever it did that, I would put a little meat on my glove and it would get fed.
It’s possible to accidentally train your bird to be lazy, by rewarding it for not hunting.
And now you have a bird that won’t exercise, and won’t hunt.
It’s lazy.
It want’s what’s easy, and in the process becomes lazy.
Like the poorly trained bird, we all have this potential within us.
We want what is easy, and in the process train ourselves to do nothing.
The danger is, that though I could correct my bird’s behavior, you aren’t so lucky.
says, “The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.”
We want that easy life.
We want someone to bring us our food, to relax and spend our days in luxury.
But the danger is that if we become lazy, the very thing we want will elude us.
Instead of life being rewarding, it becomes a hedge of thorns.
A grueling, monotonous labor.
Achieving the bare minimum and just scraping by.
When I had my birds, they were capable of exploiting me.
If there was a flaw in my training, they found out how maximize it.
The only way for me to fix the problem, was to go backwards, and do some remedial training with them.
Today, we are going to go backwards a bit, and look at the danger of laziness.
This will happen by us going through the book of Proverbs together.
Proverbs is a great book because it’s all about wisdom.
The very first chapter is a purpose statement.
King Solomon lays out that it’s given so that the reader would have insight, instruction, righteousness and knowledge.
I want you to enjoy life.
I want you to have fond memories of life.
I want you to be able to say that you lived life to the fullest.
Even God wants you to be happy.
We pray to God, knowing that He is the one who provides for us.
We worship God, because we enjoy Him.
We worship Christ, because He is our prize.
We look forward to eternity with Him.
One of the fruits of the Spirit is joy.
The Christian is supposed to be characterized by joy.
And this attitude of joy is supposed to be something that is demonstrated in all facets of life.
says, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.”
A fiery trial strikes you, suffering engulfs your life, and we are what? To rejoice.
This isn’t a sermon on joy, but what I want you to see is that there is supposed to be joy in life.
Unfortunately, sometimes that search for joy can get derailed.
Strangely, it gets derailed by our search for joy.
Laziness Brings Hardship
Laziness Brings Hardship
Unfortunately, sometimes that search for joy can get derailed.
And strangely, it gets derailed by our search for joy.
Laziness Strikes Like A Robber
Laziness Strikes Like A Robber
We want to live an easy life.
We want happiness.
We want what’s easy.
And then suddenly, the very thing you wanted the most … it’s out of your hand.
Today we are going to peruse through the Book of Proverbs.
And we are going to look at the dangers of laziness.
Because the core of laziness isn’t unhappiness, it’s actually to live a joy filled life … only it’s misguided.
says, “The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a level highway.”
He wants the level highway, he wants the easy path.
But in the end, what he gets is the very opposite, he gets a hedge of thorns.
Basically, he gets the difficult road.
Understand that laziness is something that we are all capable of.
That meant, I trained birds of prey, hawks, and falcons.
And you’d be surprised how easy it is to make bird lazy.
We would fly our birds free, this meant that they could fly away at anytime.
One of the ways that we train a bird to come back to us, is by putting a small amount of meat on our glove.
We’d hold up the glove to the bird, the bird would spot the meat, and fly to you knowing that there is a little snack on the end of the meat.
My goal when I was a falconer wasn’t to have birds just fly to my glove.
My goal was to go hunting with the bird.
It was a sport, and I wanted to challenge myself and the bird to catch big game.
Things that were a challenge for the bird.
Heres where the laziness could kick in.
For my bird to hunt, it takes effort.
She has to be alert.
She has to fly hard.
Sometimes she would slam into bushes and possibly break feathers.
Watching a bird on a jack rabbit is like watching a man on the back of a bull in a rodeo.
They get thrashed around.
But suppose my bird learned, that every time it sat in a tree and didn’t hunt, suppose it learned that whenever it did that, I would put a little meat on my glove and it would get fed.
It’s possible to accidentally train your bird to be lazy, by rewarding it for not hunting.
And now you have a bird that won’t exercise, and won’t hunt.
It’s lazy.
Laziness Strikes Like A Thief
Laziness Strikes Like A Thief
In , Solomon tells a cute little story.
“Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
He compares the ant to the sluggard, or the lazy man.
It tells almost like one of Aesop’s tales.
He personifies the ant.
This would make a cute cartoon.
He says the ant spends the summer baking bread, and then in the time of harvest gathering food.
I love the picture of an ant baking.
She uses her time wisely, so that when the winter months come, she has food prepared for her.
But then he quickly switches to the sluggard.
“How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?”
“Get out of bed man.”
Instead of preparing for the winter, instead of preparing for the time of the year when food will not grow, he’s in bed sleeping.
Get out of bed!
And the story quickly gets violent.
“A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.”
The interesting thing, is no one ever gets up and says, “I want to be completely unprepared.
But suddenly, unpreparedness springs upon you like a robber in the night!
The person who is unprepared, finds himself in panic mode.
I’ve found that when it comes to those who are unprepared, it’s never their fault.
It’s like the person who drove 300 miles, has an empty tank, and pulls into the driveway and goes to sleep for the night.
He has to work the next morning, but he oversleeps.
He runs out to his car, and finds out that he needs to now get gas.
And since he’s already running late, having to stop to get gas is going to make him extra late.
He blames the traffic for being late.
He blames his wife for not waking him up.
He blames the rain for causing him to to drive extra slow.
All the while, had he been prepared the previous night, none of this would have happened.
Laziness strikes quickly.
This same little proverb also causes us to examine our sleep patterns.
There are some people who love their sleep.
They love to sleep in.
They love lots of sleep.
I’m not going to say stop getting sleep, we all need rest.
But it’s important to plan your rest.
Don’t let your love of sleep interfere with life.
If you are someone who needs 8 hours sleep, then go to bed at a reasonable time, that will allow you to get 8 hours sleep.
One of my pet peeves is when I hear that someone couldn’t make it to church on Sunday because they were just too tired in the morning.
Plan your Saturday with Sunday in mind.
Get home by 7 on Saturday so you get plenty of sleep for Sunday.
I want you to be ready to worship God on Sunday
Laziness Strikes Your Health
Laziness Strikes Your Health
One of my favorite proverbs in the entire Bible is repeated a couple of times.
says, “The sluggard buries his hand in the dish; it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.”
The image here is just too comical.
The sluggard puts his hand in the dish … and it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.
He’s too lazy to eat!
He grabs the chicken leg.
And can’t eat it.
It’s too much work to bring it to his mouth.
He starves himself because he’s too lazy.
It’s funny, but sadly too true.
I met a man once who doesn’t do anything.
He doesn’t do play sports.
He doesn’t do physical labor.
He doesn’t work.
I look at this man, and now he’s suffering.
He’s overweight.
He has major health problems.
He doesn’t have much of an attention span.
His laziness is robbing him of his health and his life.
We were created to work.
When we don’t work it does two things.
1. It robs us of value.
My wife and I survive by Amazon.
We get everything from Amazon.
Occasionally, we buy something and it is broken or doesn’t work.
When that happens, it is frustrating.
That purchase was a waste of time.
The item purchased is a waste of time.
We will contact Amazon, and they say throw away the defective item, and they send us a new one.
What we purchased, we purchased for a reason.
God has created you for a reason.
says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Just as we purchase things from Amazon for a reason, God has purchased you for a reason, be useful.
The second thing that laziness does, is it results in you suffering.
The picture in Proverbs is of hunger.
Hunger is no good.
Hunger is your body wasting away.
Don’t be surprised if you fail to work if you don’t have money to buy food, clothing, or pay your rent.
That is the result of not working.
Every Sunday after church, usually a group of us go out to lunch.
There was one particular Sunday, where this 25 year old, who refuses to work, went with us.
When we asked her if she was going to eat,
Paul warned the Thessalonian church in , “For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Every Sunday after church, usually a group of us go out to lunch.
There was one particular Sunday, where this 25 year old, who refuses to work, went with us.
When we asked her if she was going to eat, she said she wasn’t going to buy anything, because she didn’t have any money.
I realize that you are wondering if I bought her food.
I didn’t.
Why?
Because she refuses to work.
She’s had job offers, and she turns them down.
She’s got a degree, and she won’t work.
“If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”
Laziness Strikes Your Integrity
Laziness Strikes Your Integrity
You are special.
You have been created in the image of God.
God has set you apart from the rest of His creation.
says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
You are His Workmanship.
He’s made something wonderful out of you.
Between 1501 and 1504, Michelangelo, sculpted the masterpiece David.
It is a magnificent 17ft statue of David.
I’m sure you’ve seen it.
It’s the handsome David, with a sling over his shoulder, gigantic hands and for some reason naked.
For the previous 40 years, 2 other people were commissioned for the work, but none of them were able to do it.
They were given the same massive slab of marble that Michelangelo was.
It was remarkably white.
But when they looked at the slab of marble, they said it couldn’t be worked with.
And so, it remained unused for decades lying on its side.
Until 1501, when Michelangelo took up the task to carve David.
He saw the block of marble, and had a plan for it.
Though many thought it unusable, he had a purpose.
It was his workmanship.
It was his masterpiece.
He saw something in that rock.
I can’t help but see the church in this.
God is taking what the world would think is unusable, and shaping it into something wonderful.
He’s creating it for work.
And God is creating you for a good work.
You might be saying that you are unusable.
A nobody.
You view yourself like the two men before Michelangelo viewed that marble slab, as a useless hunk of rock.
A glorious paperweight.
And by worldly standards that might be true.
And by worldly standards that might be true.
But God is greater than that.
says, “God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
The world would say we are an unusable chunk of marble.
God says, He has a work prepared for you.
When God looks at the sinner and converts him, He knows what He’s doing.
He knows you.
He knows what you’re made of.
And He knows what His plan is.
Do you doubt that God can use you?
Do you doubt God has a plan for you?
Hear the words from , “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.”
God knows what He’s working with.
He knows everything about you.
May I encourage you … bring glory to God in your work.
says, “He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.”
To fail to do the work that God has appointed you for is to reject being His workmanship.
It’s to reject His work.
It’s to bring shame upon God.
“he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.”
If you don’t work, why?
Is it because you don’t want to?
That’s just laziness.
That’s disobedience.
Is it because you think God can’t use you?
That’s disbelief.
That’s a lack of faith.
You see how you work says something about your faith in God.
There used to be a phrase called the Protestant Work Week.
The Puritans would work hard Monday through Saturday.
They didn’t take holidays.
They worked hard, and accomplished much.
Their work ethics said something about what they believed.
What do your work ethics say about you?
May every day be precious.
Work Hard
Work Hard
May every second be used wisely.
For your own health, work hard.
Work
And may you bring glory to God in how you work.
Pray