Laziness Vs Diligence Series

Series: Practical Proverbs

Thesis: The primary message of Proverbs is “Get wisdom or act and look like a fool!”

Sermon 1 & 2: Wise vs foolish

We learned that wisdom is God given not manmade but foolishness is manmade not God given. We learned that wisdom is given by God to us so that we use knowledge rightly and correctly and if we don’t have God then we don’t have wisdom and therefore we are unable to use knowledge correctly or rightly.

Sermon 3: Wickedness vs godliness

We need to be able to recognize and avoid wickedness in our lives and instead embrace godliness.

How are you doing reading through the book of Proverbs? How are you doing applying the spiritual truths of godly wisdom to your life? Are you using the wisdom that comes from God to use knowledge rightly? Or are you trusting in your own judgment of right and wrong and looking like a fool to the Kingdom of Heaven? Remember God wants us to be wise and the Devil wants us act and look like fool!

T.S. - This morning I have another great personal story to share with you about the importance of wisdom and the importance of having God be at the core of your life.

Video Illustration: The Story of Dr Ben Carlson of John Hopkins from the movie “Gifted Hands” (5 minutes)

Dr. Ben overcame adversity, injustice, prejudice and still changed the world of medicine and his own life.

Young Ben Carson didn’t have much of a chance. Growing up in a broken home amongst poverty and prejudice, his grades suffered and his temper flared. And yet, his mother never lost her faith in him. Insisting he follow the opportunities she never had, she helped grow his imagination, intelligence and his belief in himself and God. That belief, coupled with his faith in God, would drive him to follow his dream of becoming one of the world’s leading neurosurgeons.

Ben was taught by his mother at an early age that he was not to be a lazy boy, she told her boys they would have to read more, work hard at school, work hard at growing spiritually with the Lord. She told them that they could only watch 2 programs a week on Tv in the 50’s. The rest of their time was to be spent reading books, the Bible and working hard for the Lord. She told them that the Devils playground was idle minds or minds that became intoxicated with Tv and or a laziness toward their spiritual walk with the Lord.

As we continue our journey through Proverbs we see another comparison popping up in this book of wisdom. Have you seen it as you have been reading Proverbs every day? It is the battle between diligence and laziness in our life. Our fleshly tendency is to become lazy, or as some would say, “to be a slacker.” We all battle this to some degree in our lives. It could be in the physical fitness realm of life, or our spiritual life, or our intellect.

We live in a society today that has a lot of leisure time – if you compare our current time with past generations this becomes very obvious. We have a lot of couch potatoes in our society today. Obesity is on the rise in our nation most likely due to eating habits, tv and lack of exercise. But spiritual apathy is also on the rise in America.

Some would say that the worst thing you could with your life is to actively pursue wickedness, hatred and evil things. But doing things that don’t matter is nearly as bad. For example:

In Chicago, a woman jumps into the river and another woman asks for a man’s help. He responds that he would but he just bought his new suit and he does not want to ruin it.

In Dayton, Ohio, A dozen people see a woman drive her car into the Miami River. They watch idly as the woman climbs on the car’s roof and screams that she cannot swim. They all idly watch as the woman drowns right in front of their eyes.

Why Catherine Genovese died

On Friday 13 March in 1964, 28-year-old Catherine Genovese was arriving home in her built-up neighborhood from a late night shift as a bar manager in Queens, New York. She was suddenly attacked with a knife by a man named Winston Moseley. She screamed aloud “Oh my God, I've been stabbed! Please help me!” We know what she screamed because people heard her. People who didn't lift a finger to help. People who didn't want to 'get involved', who didn't EVEN call the police.

Moseley saw lights come on in the apartments nearby. He knew people were watching. He ran off, leaving Catherine to drag herself into a doorway where she lay bleeding - she could possibly have survived at this point. But her attacker decided to return to finish off what he'd started because, as he later said in court: "It didn't seem like anyone was going to stop me!" Although badly weakened by now, she again screamed for help. Of 38 witnesses who heard or saw some part of the attack (which took place over about half an hour in total), not one took action to help her. By the time the police were eventually called, she was dead.