7 Deadly Sins Series
July 6, 2008
Sloth
You know those days where you dont really feel like doing anything? You know those overcast days where its dreary out all day long and all you really want to do is call off work, lay around the house and watch a movie? You ever have days like that? I am going to tell you two stories. Then I am going to ask you a question. Frank is 32 years old. He lives in his parents basement. He works part time at a restaurant just down the road. His parents pay all of his bills. They provide all of his meals. Frank sits around all the time. He doesnt have lots of friends and he doesnt go out very much. He spends the majority of his time sitting or laying around watching movies, playing video games, and watching funny videos on the internet. Frank spends more of his life in the artificial world of entertainment than he does in the real world.
Then there is Hank. Hank manages a large business. His work keeps him constantly busy. He is always doing something. He often travels to work on business deals with clients but no matter where he is Hank is working. On a light week Hank averages about 12 hours a day at work. He has a little social life, gets enough sleep to get by and then goes back to work. In addition to his job Hank is in school working on his masters. Hank stays really busy and never has the time to just sit down. There are some thing he would like to do if he had more time but right now all he really does is work, school, and sleep. Hank is basically the exact opposite of Frank.
So the question is which one of these two people has a problem with sloth? Which of these two men do you think is lazy, sluggish, slothful? How many of you think Frank our video game playing, living with his parents 32 year old man is the one with the sloth problem? How many of you think that Hank, our business man/student/I have no free time at all has a sloth problem? Now how many of you think that by the nature the question being asked neither of those answers are right?
This week we are looking at the sin of sloth. Before we deal with what sloth is we have to break down the misconceptions and see what sloth is not. Our general picture of what sloth is seems to come from the choicely named animal that spends most of its day lying upside down from a tree. Sloth to us is a person who doesnt really do anything. We see sloth as a synonym for physical laziness. Sloth is an avoidance of work a sort of sluggishness. When most of us picture the idea of sloth we picture someone like Frank. We picture someone who just doesnt do much. We picture someone from Proverbs 6
Pr 6:6 Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! Pr 6:7 It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, Pr 6:8 yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. Pr 6:9 How long will you lie there, you sluggard? When will you get up from your sleep? Pr 6:10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest” Pr 6:11 and poverty will come on you like a bandit and scarcity like an armed man.
When I was in high school I was a very lazy person. I was a walking, talking illustration of what sloth looks like. Classes didnt challenge me. I found I could get good grades whether I paid attention or not, so I chose the latter. I spent a greater portion of most of my classes drooling on the desk than I did listening to the teacher talk. Still I got all As and Bs. I told myself I wasnt lazy, just bored. I told myself that I would work hard when something finally challenged me until then, I would take it easy. So in my large amount of free time I developed a love for movies. It was one summer probably my sophomore year of high school. I didnt have a lot of friends so all I really did during the summer was work. One summer I called off work for two weeks with the explicit purpose of doing nothing. My room was in the basement. We had an entertainment center downstairs along with a refrigerator. For two weeks the only time I left the basement was to eat a meal with my family. I took snacks, drinks, and all the movies I could watch downstairs and just laid on the couch in my pajamas all day every day for two weeks. No showers. No going out to see people. No changing clothes. Nothing just movies. I am not sure if lazy quite describes what that was. Certainly it was slothful and kind of gross now that I think about it. That is a picture of what sloth looks like. Calling off responsibilities, not doing anything, sitting around apathetic to the world, and wasting all that perfectly good energy and time is practically the definition of sloth.
In Matthew 25 we see the parable of the talents. Three servants are entrusted with different amounts of money when their master leaves. The first two go out and invest the money and when their master returns they rejoice for they made him more money. The third took his one talent and buried it in the ground. The master is angry with that servant and says: You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? He has the servant cast from his presence into darkness.
This servant was lazy and did not work to earn his master more money. While that is a part of sloth that is not all that sloth is. Sloth is more than just sitting around the house and never exercising. A student who does not do their work on time or even to the best of their ability is a slothful student. A worker who cuts corners and finds the easy way out of situations is a slothful worker. A husband or wife who avoids teaching their kids the hard truths of life is a slothful parent. A person who avoids work like the plague is a slothful person but sloth is more than that. Sloth is more than just an avoidance of physical work it is also an avoidance of Spiritual work.
There is a sloth epidemic that is taking over this country and its not just in the people who do nothing. Remember Frank and Hank? Which one has a sloth problem? They both do. Sloth is an issue of the heart not an issue of time management. Sloth is not just doing nothing it is not doing the things that you should do. There is a time and place for doing nothing. If doing nothing was a sin then God would not have created the Sabbath. You see the opposite of sloth is not business. Some people who have a sloth problem are actually very busy. The problem is not that they dont do anything its that they will do all sorts of things that they dont need to do instead of doing the things they should be doing. Let me show you what I mean. Turn in your Bibles to Luke 10:38. Sloth is like many sins is a sin of priority. What makes it so bad is that it keeps us from doing the things that are good. Luke 10 shows us a bit more about sloth and at least shows us what sloth does not look like:
Lk 10:38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. Lk 10:39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lords feet listening to what he said. Lk 10:40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, Lord, dont you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me! Lk 10:41 Martha, Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset about many things, Lk 10:42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.
Now Jesus has come over for diner. Mary and Martha have to prepare the banquet for Jesus arrival. Considering Jesus popularity this is no small task. He could be accompanied by His 72 followers, or at the very least He came with an entourage of 12. So there is a lot of preparation to be done. When Jesus arrives Mary leaves Martha with all the work to sit at Jesus feet. Now lets pause right here. Two ladies are preparing a meal for at least 14 men very possibly more than that. One of the ladies leaves to go hang out with the guys. The first problem is that is extremely rude. What is Mary thinking? Certainly she is very lazy. Mary must have a sloth problem. She chooses to sit at Jesus feet, rather than work on serving all the people at the house. The second problem is what she is doing is unacceptable. Remember this is before womens rights movement and equality in the work place. She is acting like a disciple and she is a woman. At this time women were not supposed to do that. Discipleship was a male position and a woman had no right to be apart of it.
So we have poor Martha who had a huge amount of preparation to begin with, but now instead of having a helper she must do it all by herself. Racing back and forth across the kitchen getting things ready Martha certainly got frustrated. Finally she breaks down and expresses herself. She wants Jesus to tell Mary to pull her weight, to help. Jesus response was not what you would expect. Everything in their culture would indicate that He would say: Oh, Martha I am sorry I didnt even notice. Mary, go help your sister with diner. That is not what He says. In fact Jesus defends Mary. Martha is worried about diner and dishes Mary just wants to spend time with Jesus. Mary is not the one with the sloth problem, Martha is.
We so often repeat Marthas mistake. We allow ourselves to get so focused on all the little things that could be done or need to be done that we miss Jesus. Jesus only had a few months left on earth and Martha was going to miss Him because she was worried about diner preparations. Sometimes we are like Martha. We have an opportunity to sit at the feet of Jesus, to spend time with Him, learn from Him, and just be near Him but instead we spend it taking care of all these pointless tasks. Martha missed Jesus for dishes. We miss Him for even less significant things than that. I think we sloth expresses itself when most when we miss divine appointments for meaningless events.
I get what you are saying but come on. Sloth is not a sin. It is not that big of a deal. So what if someone doesnt get all the things done that they should who does? I get that sins are bad. Pride, envy, greed, lust these sins can hurt people but come on, sloth never hurt anyone. The church is just making a big deal out of nothing. In 2 Samuel 11 we see the story of King David. We dont have time to read it all so I will paraphrase. Its spring, the time when kings go off to war. David is king so he should be going off to war. Instead he stays home. Since everyone else is away David doesnt have a lot to do. He just sits around the palace doing a whole lot of nothing. Then he get bored. So he goes up on the roof of the palace; which is the modern day equivalent of clicking on and 18 and up only website. Surprise, surprise there is a woman bathing. David sees her, thinks: Oh yea, thats a good looking girl. He sends for her. Shes married. No matter, David is king after all. So he sleeps with her. She gets pregnant, woops. Husband is off at war no covering that up. So David sends for her husband. He comes home but it too honorable to sleep with his wife while his fellow soldiers are at war. So David gets fed up and orders he be killed. All of this could have been avoided if David had just done what he was supposed to do instead of staying around the palace like a sloth. Sloth is a dangerous thing. It can lead to all sorts of terrible sins.
We have a problem with sloth. We have become Spiritually lazy. Do you realize that Biblical illiteracy has become a life threatening factor in the church? We have Christians who have been in the church for 20-30 years and hardly have a cursory knowledge of Gods Word. We have mature Christians who dont even know what languages the Bible was written in. Do you know why people wanted to learn to read in the Middle Ages? So they could read the word of God for themselves. Now we have Christians that cant tell you the books of the Bible, that dont know Old Testament from New. We have become lazy in our development because we are not doing what we should be doing. How often we live with sloth in our lives and dont even know it? Instead of spending time serving the kingdom of God we pick up meaningless hobbies. Instead of reading the Scripture to know what God is saying to us and to learn more about Him we pick up a romance novel or some light and fluffy fiction book that we think is more fun to read. Honestly do you spend your time reading the Bible and theology, or do you invest it more in magazines on pop culture or Newsweek looking at what is going on in the world today? How many of you feel that your knowledge of Scripture is not what it should be? You know why? We have sloth problem. Do you have a solid foundation? Do you know what you need to know to stand up before a world that hates you and share the message of the Gospel? If not then why not? What are you doing with your time? What is it in your life that is more important than your relationship with Jesus Christ? What are you doing that keeps you from spending time in the Word, from spending time in prayer? What is it that is so important that keeps you studying Gods Word and His message to you? I dont even mean just reading the Scriptures by themselves. I mean really studying them, diving in to the text looking at culture and background and trying to understand what Scripture is saying?
We make excuses to justify our sins but we have a sloth problem. Sure we try to hide it. We try to pretend we are just calm, laid back, easy going, but the truth is we are Spiritually lazy. We do not know the Bible like we should. We do not know God like we should and we seem unwilling to do anything to change that. We look for the minimum. We look to do enough to get by. I want to get in to the kingdom of God but once I am in I want to just sit back, relax, and enjoy. I dont want to keep working. I dont want to keep doing stuff. What is the minimum I have to do to get by? That is Spiritual laziness. That is sloth. For some reason the church is always looking for the status quo. What must I do to be saved? Give me the bottom line. I dont want a challenge just a checklist so I can complete it with the minimal amount of effort. The problem is just getting by isnt enough. Jesus demands everything from His followers. Are you willing to give it to Him?
Scripture warns us in many places to avoid the lazy person because the consequences of sloth are damaging to our lives. The life that Jesus offers is not for the lazy but for those who passionately follow Him. Jesus isnt looking for lukewarm Christians. He isnt looking for Sunday morning pew warmers. He is looking for disciples. He even says in Revelation 3 that He would rather us be cold then lukewarm.
You see the problem with sloth is, its lukewarm. There is no passion no desire no energy to change the world for the kingdom of God and in that sloth is the worst kind of sin. If you really want a relationship with God it is time to stop sitting on the fence. Its time to stop testing the waters. If you want in, it is time to get in. But know this: if you are going to get in, if you are going to follow Jesus, its all or nothing. You either follow Him with everything you have or you are wasting your time. If you are lukewarm Christ will spit you out.
So what will you do? Will you sit back another week and do nothing? Or will you finally stand up and serve? Which servant will you be? Will you be like the servants with 5 talents and 3 talents who work hard and invest and rejoice in their masters return? Or will you be the lazy servant who hides what he was given in the ground and waits? In case you missed it the description of where the lazy servant is thrown is the same description that is used of hell. So I guess the real question is: will you labor for a kingdom that is eternal and be blessed with more than you can imagine? Or will you work for that which perishes and even what you have will be taken from you? When Jesus is before you will you focus on Him? Or on the dishes?
