OPEN: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo0KjdDJr1c–time stamp 0:0 thru 2:44 - A Millennial Job Interview)
Now, how would you describe that young lady? Was she a self-centered, selfish woman?? Well, yeah. It was very clear that she absolutely had to have a specially created coffee latte every morning; and (when her interview went south) she said she wanted to talk to the HR director because she wanted to take off a day as a “mental health” day.
Did she feel Entitled. No question. She said she needed validation and encouragement, and it was obvious that she believed she deserved this job just because she showed up!!!
And was she lazy? Unquestionably. She said she stayed up till 3 skyping with her boyfriend, and 8 o’clock only came once a day, and it was not in the morning. “Who gets up at 8?” she asks.
She’s an excellent example of what we’re talking about this morning. According the ESV the 3rd sin that Sodom was condemned for was called “Prosperous Ease”. The KJV is a little clearer when it calls it an “abundance of idleness.”
Now THIS kind of sin (abundance of idleness) has been around for centuries. It’s a kind of a feeling of entitlement, selfishness and laziness all wrapped up in one neat little package.
One of the terms the Bible uses for this kind of behavior is “slothfulness”.
Proverbs 12:24 says “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.”
And Proverbs 19:15 declares “Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger.”
God warns us against this kind of lifestyle. One of my favorite passages on this topic is this from Proverbs 6:10-11 (and I repeat it to myself anytime I feel like getting a little too lazy) “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.’
Someone once said: “Hard work spotlights the character of people: Some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.” (Sam Ewing, radio announcer and writer.)
God didn’t create us to sit around and contemplate our navels. When God created Adam and Eve what special place did he create for them? That’s right, He created a garden for them. Now, what do you do with a “garden?” Well… you plant vegetables in it, you weed it, you cultivate it, you spray it for bugs. You WORK in the garden.
That’s one of the reasons I don’t have one.
In Genesis 2:5 we’re told that BEFORE God created that Garden “…no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up — for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to WORK the ground.”
God created us to DO work. In the Mosaic Law God declared: “Six days (a week) you SHALL LABOR, and do all your work but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work…” Exodus 20:9-10
So what we’ve learned so far is: We were created by God to do honest labor. And we’ve also learned that sloth/laziness can make us poor.
But the people that God condemned in Sodom were NOT poor. Ezekiel tells us they that - not only had an abundance of idleness - but they also had an “abundance of bread” (which was probably a reference to their wealth – they had more food than they knew what to do with). So what’s going on here? I mean their “laziness” is obviously not making them poor. In fact it seems that their riches are what’s making them lazy. And I got to thinking – why then would God say the Sodomites were slothful?
In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells this interesting parable:
“For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.
Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and SLOTHFUL servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
Now, there’s a couple things I want you to notice here. First, did you notice that I capitalized the word “SLOTHFUL” in that story? I did that because I never saw that word there before. But why was this servant called slothful? I mean he dug a hole and buried the talent!!! He actually DID some work! (Possibly more physical work than the other servants). So why was this guy being condemned as slothful? Well, he was slothful because he didn’t do anything worthwhile with what he’d been given. He BURIED IT! He didn’t USE what He’d been given FOR his Master.
Sodom was a mighty city… but it was apparently a very slothful city. They didn’t use what God had given them for anybody but themselves. They were selfish and self-centered. And they believed WHAT THEY HAD they were ENTITLED to.
The 2nd thing I want you to notice was what the master did with this slothful servant. The master took away what the servant had been given… and then he “cast him… into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” That sounds a lot like what God did with Sodom. In Matthew 25, the master punished the servant because he was slothful, and in Ezekiel we’re told God destroyed the city of Sodom because they were slothful.
Now, I don’t know about you, but if that makes God that angry… I don’t want to be slothful!!!
ILLUS: Years ago a preacher was telling me about a problem he had at his church. The church members had told him that they wanted to grow (Frankly, every church tells the new preacher they want to grow). But when this church had new families visiting, none of the members wanted to help out in the nursery or any other ministry to young couples because - as they would say: “I’ve worked for this church for years. I’ve earned the right to sit in the sanctuary and just worship on Sunday. I deserve the right to sit and listen now.”
Let me be clear - these people were SLOTHFUL. They believed that “going to church” was all about them. Church was all about what THEY were entitled to. They’d been given blessings by God, but they refused to serve their God any more because they’d already put in their time.
This is what I refer to as a La-Z-Boy kind of Christianity. Now, I’m knocking La-Z-Boy… they have great chairs. They’re really comfortable. In fact, I want to show you just a few of the kinds of chairs they have (we showed pictures on the overhead of the following furniture). There’s the Zero Gravity chair, the Massage chair, and (my favorite), the Office chair. These are great chairs, and they’re very comfortable chairs.
But notice the name: Laaaazyboy!!! And they make Eeeeeaaasy chairs. That’s a great selling point for a piece of furniture, but it’s a TERRIBLE concept when it comes to how we should live our lives for Jesus.
ILLUS: Back when I was a boy, my dad saw me dawdling along a path. He said something that I’ve never forgotten: “Son, you need to walk like you mean to get there.”
And that’s exactly what God tells us in Scripture. Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica 2 Thessalonians 3:7 “… you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you”. And he wrote something similar to the church at Rome: “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.” Romans 12:11
In other words: walk like you mean to get there!!! Don’t be idle. Don’t be slothful. Be fervent in how you serve God. Walk like you mean to get there!
But why? Why should I walk like I mean to get there? Well, because somebody may be watching you. The excitement (or lack of excitement) they see in you about Jesus could make all the difference in whether or not they decide to become Christians. After all, if you’re not excited, if you’re not committed, if Jesus doesn’t seem to mean all that much to you – why should they want what you have. Folks are watching.
ILLUS: Baseball has had some really great players, and one of the most famous was a man named Joe DiMaggio. During his 13 years as a New York Yankee he had 361 Home runs?, 1537 RBIs and a batting average of 325. He played baseball until he was about 35 years old… long after other players had retired. But even in his later years he always seemed give every game an extra measure of effort. A reporter asked DiMaggio why he still hustled so much. DiMaggio replied: “Every day when I walk through the tunnel and look up into Yankee Stadium, I imagine that there is a young man who has come to see me play for the 1st time and I want him to see me at my best.”
Joe DiMaggio was a man who loved the game of baseball so much… and who loved his young fans so much… that he literally gave all he had every moment he on the field. And that’s what God is asking of us. He’s asking that we love Him, and love His church, and love the lost SO MUCH that we give all we’ve got all the days of our lives. Because – if you give it all you’ve got in THIS life - you may change eternity for some of the people who watch you.
Now, I want to close with this observation: The Problem for too many Christians is that they’re used to this idea of “RETIREMENT”. They believe there should come a time in their life when they don’t have to do anything anymore. They wait eagerly for the day when they can sit in their Laaaaa-Z-Boys and take life Eaaasy for the rest of their mortal existence.
BUT… let me let in you in on a secret here. If we love Jesus we’re not going to be satisfied with retiring this side of heaven. In fact, the Bible says our retirement is not here on earth… it’s in heaven. Hebrews 4:9-11 tells us “…there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” Hebrews 4:9-11
There remains a SABBATH REST. This world is NOT our home, we’re just a passing through. Our retirement is UP THERE... where all things are made new.
ILLUS: In the first church I served I visited a lady who’d been a longtime member of that church, but now was living in the Nursing Home. She’d had a stroke that had left her paralyzed all down the left side of her body. The left side of her face kind of collapsed, her left arm was useless, and her left side was paralyzed. And she was very disconcerting to visit with. Whenever I shared something that was exciting at church, she cried and whenever I told her something sad, she cried. No matter what I told her she wept. But then, one day I came in to find her seated at a small table writing something. When I asked her what she was writing she told me she was writing notes of encouragement to folks back at church. I never forgot that. Here was a woman who had every right to do nothing but sit and watch TV for the rest of her life, but she REFUSED to quit serving Christ even when life forced her to live in a Nursing Home.
If she can could serve Christ after a stroke, we’ve no excuse.
CLOSE: There’s the story of a missionary couple been working in Africa for decades, and now they were coming back to the States. They’d crossed the ocean on a cruise ship that was now docked at New York harbor. But as they stood on the deck they realized there was no one there to meet them. They’d been gone so long, all their old friends had forgotten them. But there WAS a large crowd gathered there. On that same ship, Teddy Roosevelt was returning from Africa where he’d been on a hunting expedition. The mayor and other dignitaries were there. Newspaper reporters were snapping pictures and taking notes.
But no one noticed missionary couple. There was no one waiting for them at the dock.
The old missionary became a little angry, and he said to his wife, “This is all wrong. We’ve given our lives in service to God, and we have no one seems to care about us. But here THIS MAN comes back from a hunting trip and everybody crowds around just to welcome him home. It’s just not right!”
His wife said nothing for a while, but then she put her arm around his shoulders, smiled up at him and then said: “Honey… we’re not home yet!’”
That Godly woman understood a basic Biblical fact. This world is not our home, aAnd our retirement is not here either. There remains a Sabbath rest. I want you to think about something: our mortal existence is only going to be for 70 or 80 or a few more years. Why waste those years when we can make a difference for Christ.
I had a talk with a man this week who’s learned that he has an aneurism in his body. If he lifts much more than 30 pounds, the aneurism could burst and he’d die. What do you think he wanted to talk about? He wanted to know what he could do to serve God. He knew he could die at any moment, but he refused to give up and surrender what could be his final days wasting his life on trivial matters.
INVITATION
