The Deadly Sin of Sloth
--Proverbs 6:6-11 and Mathew 25:14-30
James S. Hewett, former pastor of Saratoga, California’s Presbyterian Church, tells this story: “A class of high school sophomores had been assigned a term paper. Now the day of reckoning had come, the papers were due. The teacher knew that a particular student, named Gene, had not been working steadily on his paper as others had in the class. He was prepared for some sort of excuse. When the teacher went to collect the papers, Gene said, ‘My dog ate it.’ The teacher, who had heard them all, gave Gene a hard stare of unbelief. But Gene insisted and persisted, ‘It’s true. I had to force him, but he ate it.’” [SOURCE: --James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988), p. 182.
Slothfulness is the sin of laziness, and a lazy person is often called a sluggard, especially in the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. Sluggards are slothful people, and sloth is the last in the list of “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Sluggards are found in both the physical and spiritual realms, for sloth is “the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.” [SOURCE: http://www.deadlysins.com/sins/sloght.html]. The opposite of a slothful sluggard would be a conscientious, diligent, energetic, industrious, persevering, thorough, tireless, vigorous worker.
Although sluggards are slothful when it comes to physical work, I can not recall meeting many if any such people. The closest I would say that I can remember such cases are such students as Gene in our opening story. Therefore, today, we are going to concentrate on overcoming sloth in the ministry of the Church as we are His hands and feet for bringing about His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”
Recently I read the article “The Changing Face of Evangelism in America” by James Long in the March-April issue of OUTREACH MAGAZINE. The article confirmed that the Church has a wide open mission field in our own nation but that we are often missing the opportunity to be the hands, feet, and mouthpiece of Jesus in reaching our lost family members, friends, and neighbors.
Here are just a few of the situations we are facing in our ministry today. While 90-95% of Americans believe in God, only 17.5% are worshiping on a regular basis in a local congregation. In response to this fact, James Long concludes that we are “loosing ground, losing credibility, loosing the battle.” [SOURCE: James Long, “The Changing Face of Evangelism in America, OUTREACH MAGAZINE, March/April 2008, 68.] 86% of Americans “believe they can have a good relationship with God without being involved in church, and 78% think Christianity today is more about organized religion than about loving God and loving people.” [Ibid, page 58].
Our society today is both postmodern and post-Christian in its lifestyle and thinking, yet people are still being saved and coming to know Jesus as their personal Saviour and Lord. How is that happening? Not in great evangelistic crusades like those of D. L. Moody and Billy Graham and not very often in response to an altar call in the local Church. 59% of new Christians today tell us that they came to faith in Christ through family or friends, and 64% tell us that came about as a result of conversation, again not so much with preachers but with family members or friends who were authentic role models of a genuine, unquestionable Christlike lifestyle.
Our two texts today provide us pictures of how Jesus wants to use each of us as dynamic, industrious, energetic, tireless, Spirit filled ministers to love people and bring them to faith in Christ. The ant in Proverbs is a prime example for us to follow in our work of loving God and people and reaching out to the 82.5% of Americans who are not in God’s house today.
Writing in LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE, Bernabe Spivey relates this incident: “Going down some old cement steps, I noticed an ant carrying a leaf on its back. The leave was many times bigger than the ant. Then the ant came to a big crack in the cement that it couldn’t cross. The ant stopped a moment. I wondered if the ant would turn back or proceed into the crack without the leaf. Instead, the ant put the leaf across the crack and then crossed the crack by walking across the leaf. On the other side, the ant picked up the leaf and continued on its journey.” [SOURCE: --Bernabe Spivey, LEADERSHIP, Vol. 20, no. 23.]
I remember as a student at Asbury College one particular chapel service in which a young pastor preached on this text from Proverbs 6 that in the New King James Version begins:
“Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise. . .”
The ant is an industrious creature, but contemporary disciples in the Church are often sluggards that must learn valuable lessons from her. She “provides supplies in the summer and gathers food in the harvest.” God’s fields are “white unto the harvest,” but we are not getting His job done.
As the ant used her leaf to bridge the crack in the cement, we need to be building bridges to our family, friends, and neighbors, modeling Christ before them, having Christian conversation with them, loving them, and bringing them to Jesus, but instead we are spiritually asleep and blind to the hurts, pains, and needs of people all around us. The Holy Spirit calls out to us:
“How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
When will you rise from your sleep?
“A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler,
“And your need like an armed man.”
The Lord confronts us, “When will you rise from your sleep?” Unless our local, mainline congregations in America “rise from our sleep,” “poverty will come upon us like a prowler,” and we will be shutting our doors permanently while people we love who are lost and dying without Jesus enter eternity lost separated from God forevermore while all the time God cries out to us, “Church, do you really care?”
The Bible warns us many times as it does in the first part of Jeremiah 4:10, “Accursed is the one who is slack in doing the work of the LORD. . .” In many translations of this verse that English word “slack” if often rendered “slothful.” God’s ministry is never to be done slothfully by His people.
There are warning signs or symptoms which alert us that we are in danger of becoming slothful sluggards in our ministry for Jesus Christ. Slothful disciples epitomize: laxness, lethargy, apathy, disinterest, indifference, and complacency. Spiritual sluggards often are coldhearted, passionless, spiritless, unfeeling, and unemotional in their relationship with God and their love and concern for others, especially towards the unchurched lost.
Such was the case with the servant who hid his talent in our Gospel Lesson from Matthew 25. In the King James Version his master spoke to him as “You wicked and slothful servant.” Talents symbolize all the spiritual gifts, natural aptitudes, time, resources, and opportunities God has given to each of us to use in service and ministry to Him and to others.
The slothful servant did not develop his talent to use in service for his master, and many of us in our Churches today do likewise. We become apathetic and show little or no interest in letting God use us in ministry and mission. We become lax in our own personal spiritual formation and growth as Christian disciples. In the spiritual realm all this is part of the deadly sin of sloth.
Just as the master in the Parable of the Talents gave talents to all His servants, so the Holy Spirit has given each one of us spiritual gifts and natural abilities to use in ministry to others for the advancement of His Kingdom. When we do not develop, multiply, and use them for His glory, we are guilty of the deadly sin of sloth.
While we are not saved by good works, we are saved to do good works for the Kingdom of God. Paul explicitly affirms so in Ephesians 2:10, “[God] has “created [us] in Christ Jesus for good works, which [He] prepared beforehand to be our way of life.” Then in Galatians 5:6b Paul expounds on this theme of working in ministry by reminding us “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.”
As His faithful, loving, obedient servants we must work in love in serving others by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, offering hospitality and shelter to the stranger, clothing the naked, taking care of the sick, visiting those in prison, and offering Christ to the lost.
God has prepared this as our “way of life,” and our calling to live this lifestyle has never been more urgent. Jesus challenges us as He did the Twelve in John 9:4, “We must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” Will we let the Holy Spirit work through us, or will we be slothful servants who refuse to use our talents in ministry to others?
In his Alpha Talk “What About the Church,” Nicky Gumbel tells this story about John Wimber, the founding pastor of the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship and the Worldwide Vineyard Movement: “John Wimber was once approached by a member of his congregation who had met somebody in great need. After the Sunday service this man told John Wimber of his frustration in trying to get help.
“‘This man needed a place to stay, food, and support while he gets on his feet and looks for a job,’ he said. ‘I am really frustrated. I tried telephoning the church office, but no one could see me and they couldn’t help me. I finally ended up having to let him stay with me for the week! Don’t you think the church should take care of people like this?’
“John Wimber thought for a moment and then said, ‘It looks like the church did.’” [SOURCE: Nicky Gumbel, “What About the Church,” in QUESTIONS OF LIFE: A PRACTICAL INTRODUCTION TO THE CHRISTIAN FAITH (Colorado Springs: Cook Ministry Resources, a division of Cook Communications Ministries, 1996), 226.]
My sisters and brothers in Christ, this is kind of work Jesus calls each one of us to do for His kingdom. He is counting on you and me to “take care of people like this,” the 82.5% of Americans who are not in Church today most of whom claim they believe in God yet see us “being more about organized religion than we are about loving God and loving people.” Jesus calls us to “make a difference in their lives” that will count for eternity.
May God grant each one of us “24/7” open eyes, open ears, and out stretched hands” to minister to their hurts, pains, and needs in love. In surrender and obedience to the Holy Spirit we shall overcome the deadly sin of sloth.
