Sermon Tone Analysis

Our spiritual forefathers in the early church maintained that there were seven sins that were deadly.

The were /Pride, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Anger, Lust,/ and /Gluttony/.

They were considered deadly because, if they are not crucified daily, they lead the soul away from God and righteousness.

They were considered the root cause of all human unhappiness.

So far, we've looked at Pride, Envy, and Greed.

Last week, several of you asked which of the next "deadly sins" I was going to preach on.

Well, some of you made it simple for me.

The Sunday I preached on greed, I had a number of you approach me and say, I don't want to have a problem with greed, so I guess I'll quit my job.

So, this morning's /sin de jour/ is /sloth/.

Our word for it is laziness.

The primary biblical passage that speaks of sloth -- though there are many others -- is found in Proverbs:

Proverbs 6:6-11 /Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!

It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

How long will you lie there, you sluggard?

When will you get up from your sleep?

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man./

(NIV)

The Hebrew word for /sluggard/ occurs here and 13 other times in Proverbs.

It is used nowhere else in the Old Testament.

It refers to more than mere laziness.

In other proverbs, the word is contrasted with /uprightness/ and /righteousness/ and associated with /being shiftless/.

A slothful person, in the eyes of the Old Testament, is not only a lazy person, but also an irresponsible person who is undependable and who becomes a burden to his or her family and community/.

If the slothful person continues in their ways, they may eventually engage in wicked or evil behavior.

The result is personal ruin.

!

I. PHYSICAL SLOTH CAN KILL THE BODY*

#. when we think of sloth, I have no doubt that most of us immediately think of those who do not care for physical labor or work

* ILLUS.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian of the early 20th century, once wrote; /The first hour of the day belongs to God in worship, the other hours of the day belong to God in work./

#. society will always have some segment of its citizens who do not for work, and given the choice between working and freeloading they would choose the latter

#. for the vast majority of us, physical sloth is not a problem

#. the most recent reports from the U.S. Government is that American worker productivity continues to increase

#. if you are an average worker, you put in 50 hours a week at your job

#. some of you put in far more

#.

this is how it should be

!! A. GOD CREATED US TO BE INDUSTRIOUS AND WORK TO BE A BLESSING

#. have you ever wondered why we have to work?

#. is work supposed to be a joy or is it a grim necessity?

#. what place does work have in your life and what is your attitude toward it?

#. in the book of 2 Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul emphasized the /witness of work/

#. in his first letter to these Christians, Paul had written primarily about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ

#. they had a lot of questions that he sought to give them answers to

#. because some were expecting the return of Christ at any moment, they had quit their jobs and were not interested in doing anything else

#. the result was two-fold

#. they had become a physical burden to their families and others in the church who felt obligated to support them

#.

they had become nosey busybodies peering into everyone else's business

* 2 Thessalonians 3:11 /"We hear that some among you are idle.

They are not busy; they are busybodies."/

#. their decision points to a basic flaw in their attitude toward work

#. they did not see work as being a spiritual matter

#. nothing could be further from Biblical truth

#.

God created us to be industrious and work to be a blessing

!! B. GOD COMMANDED MAN TO WORK THAT HE MIGHT KNOW BLESSINGS

#. what the blessings of work you ask?

#. the blessing of providing for you family and setting an example for your children

#.

Paul asserts that your unwillingness to provide for the basic needs of your family is tantamount to denying the faith

* 1 Timothy 5:8 /"If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."/

#. the blessing of penetrating the marketplace with a Christian witness

#.

Jesus made it abundantly clear that Christians are to impact the world and spread their influence to every corner of society

#. we are to be salt and light

#. the church gathers on Sunday, but it scatters on Monday through Saturday

#. if we are salt, let us take ourselves out of the saltshaker

#. if we are light, let us remove the bushel basket

#. the blessing of promoting the kingdom

#. each of us has a calling

* Ephesians 4:1 /"As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received."/

#. through the wages we receive because of our work, you and I have to opportunity to be good stewards by supporting evangelism and missions

#. doing so promotes the advancement of the kingdom in places you and I may never see, among people we may never meet this side of the Kingdom of heaven

#. the blessing of giving to others

* Wphesians 4:28 /"He who has been stealing must steal no /longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need."/

#. this Scriptures paints a picture of God's letting us work and prosper so that we can give our abundance to others in need

#. what a novel approach to work!

* ILLUS.

After Andrew Carnegie died, the people who cleaned out his desk found a piece of paper on which he had written his life goal.

It had been scrawled when he was in his 20s: /"I want to spend the first half of my life accumulating as much money as I can and the second half of my life giving it away."/

And that's exactly what he did.

Carnegie amassed a personal fortune of more than $450 million and gave it all away before he died.

#. believes are to be examples in all things including our work ethic

#.

God's people are to be industrious when it comes to our secular work

#. the reason is that even our secular work has a spiritual purpose behind it

!

II.

INTELLECTUAL SLOTH CAN KILL THE MIND

* ILLUS.

The United Negro College Fund used to advertise for funds with the well-known slogan, /"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."/

#. one of my greatest concerns for our culture in general and the church in particular is that we have become a nation of intellectual sluggards

#.

I believe that too many Americans are gripped by intellectual sloth

#. students want to be spoon-fed answers

#. teachers are so busy trying to teach character that they no longer have time to teach critical thinking

#. because we have become a nation of intellectual sluggards we are wasting our minds

* ILLUS.

SAT scores are on the average, 80 points lower than they were thirty years ago.

* ILLUS.

In last week's /Time Magazine/ I saw an article reporting that in 1959 the vocabulary of an average 9th grader was 25,000 words.

In 1999 the vocabulary of average 9th grader is only 10,000 words.

#. in the Book of Proverbs, King Solomon paints a picture of wisdom going through the streets like a heralder who nobody will listen to

* Proverbs 1:20-22 /"Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares; 21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech: 22How long will you simple ones love your simple ways?

How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?"/

NIV

#. the most damning consequence of America=s flirtation with intellectual sloth is the rank biblical illiteracy that is the result of that sloth

#. fifty years ago, even non-Christians had an elementary knowledge of the Scriptures and biblical history

#. today, the typical lost person is totally ignorant of bible history or bible facts and the average believers has only a cursory knowledge of those Scriptures