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Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
GET SOME ANTS IN YOUR PANTS
Proverbs 6:6-11, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth, and thy want as an armed man."
It is always reassuring to see how our God can take even the smallest creatures of creation to teach us a lesson in his provision and in our role in making provision for ourselves and working in the Kingdom of God. As we go about our daily lives we often overlook some very powerful lessons that can be learned from God’s creation. One such incident is found in this passage from the Book of Proverbs.
It would serve us well to examine the habits of the ants and see what we can learn from them. After all, the Word of God tells us to “go to the ant”, in other words go check them out. See what they do and how they do it and learn all you can because even though they may be among the smallest insects on earth, they have learned to build colonies, build “cities” if you will, under the earth and have survived since the creation by doing the things that come to them by instinct.
How many of you would like to prosper like the ants? It’s nearly impossible to stop them from spreading all over your lawn. They are always at every picnic, even when they don’t get an engraved invitation. They are some of the most industrious creatures on earth!
Have you ever seen a lazy ant? I’ve never seen a live ant just standing still, lying around on the sofa, watching TV, or just doing nothing. There are no “couch potato” ants. They are constantly moving. No moss is growing under their feet. They carry not only their own share of the load but many have been known to carry as much as 100 times their own body weight with relative ease.
Oh that we could find enough Christians who were just willing to shoulder their part of the load, much less carry the load for 100 other Christians. There are a few of these kinds of workers in the church, but very few.
I do know that there is a lot of “couch potato” Christians. I dare say that very few, if any, of us don’t have a little bit of a lazy streak from time to time. We can call it burn out, we can call it “charging our batteries” or whatever we like but the truth is that we just have to have our times to kick back and do nothing.
One thing that we all must realize is that God did not create us to just sit around doing nothing. We were created to work, to build, to grow and to continually learn to work and build more.
God set an example for us when he began the Bible by saying that he worked to create all things and then rested from his work on the seventh day. Work and industriousness is the very character and nature of God.
Most of us wake up in the morning and say, “Oh no, it’s morning!” What we should say is “thank God for another day to do his work”. Work is a blessing, not a curse. After all what could we accomplish without putting forth some effort? Every good thing in life requires work and effort. It can even be said that most of us are known by the “work” we do. Some of you are secretaries, some are accountants, some are construction workers, some are electricians, some are students, some are homemakers, some are electronics technicians, computer repair people, or programmers, and the list goes on and on. There are a lot of people who don’t know your name but they identify you by what you do as work.
Work gives life meaning. If you don’t think that’s true then consider these statistics from the Social Security Administration. According to their studies, the average lifespan of people after retirement from their lifelong work is only 18 months. Why? I believe it is because after they retire, life loses a lot of its zest. Most don’t have a reason to even get out of bed in the morning after a few months of retirement. It’s as though they can’t wait to leave their work to just do nothing at all. I don’t believe that God created man to retire and quit doing any work. There has to be something out there to replace your work. Some hobby, some charity work, or something that will peak your interest and give you a reason to keep on living. People who give up and just go home to rock on the front porch without a dream or a vision for their future are not living, just existing, and it won’t be long until the body is so out of shape that it will begin to fail to function as it should.
I am one of those looking forward to the day that I can leave the JOB, but not to do nothing. I feel sorry for those who have no future after their job is gone. It’s time to get a real life and realize that God isn’t finished with you yet. I want to do so much and I have so much to do that I almost don’t have time to go to a job anymore. Serving the Lord in ministry is far more rewarding than going to the job but the bills must be paid and so we just keep on doing what we have to do until God sees fit to change things.
Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
That means that God expects us work, in every area of our lives, just as though we were working for him, because we are working for him. Everything we do reflects upon our Christian character.
An ant works because that’s what ants do. No one has to watch over him to make sure he is doing his job. He doesn’t have to punch a time clock because his work never ends. He doesn’t worry about how much he is being paid because he knows that all the other ants are doing their part too and that the needs of the colony will be met.
I only wish that Christians could have that much faith in their Heavenly Father. We are too busy chasing the dollar to give God the time and energy that he deserves from us.
If your boss on the job has to watch over you all day to make sure that you are doing your work; if all you ever do is complain of the low wages, bad working conditions, and you have a don’t care attitude about your company, that’s a terrible witness of the Love of God that is supposed to be in your heart. God expects integrity. We all love to work in God’s house. The work we do for the Lord is extremely satisfying and exciting. That should be the same attitude we have on the job too.
Looking back at that ant colony we can easily see that it takes hard work and strict discipline on the part of every ant to see that the colony thrives. The worker ants can’t go on strike because they don’t get paid more than the others. The queen ant can’t refuse to do her work, or the whole colony dies. Those that dig the channels, tend to the eggs in the nest and who protect the nest all have their tasks to do and it takes all of them working together to get the job done.
Teamwork is a necessary part of our work for the Lord too. There are no unimportant people. Even those who won’t or don’t carry their part of the work load are still important but they would be even more important if they would just put their shoulder to the wheel when they are needed.
Another thing is that I have never seen a colony of ants sitting in a motivational seminar in an attempt to get them to move. They are too busy to need motivation. I don’t see an ant standing along the trail every few inches with a prod in his hand making the others keep moving. They just keep moving because they are self motivated by survival.
There is nothing harder in the world than to try to motivate someone is unmotivated. Have you ever tried to get a teenager to work when they don’t want to? Have you ever tried to make yourself get up and go take out the trash, rake the leaves or paint the house?
We hold our motivational seminars, how-to classes and dream building sessions in an effort to make ourselves move. I’ve heard it said that our problem is not so much a lack of motivation as it is the lack of a dream or vision.
There is a lot of truth to that. Just to prove this point let’s see what happens if we offer to pay that teenager $20 to do the job instead of just ordering them to do it? The dream of having that $20 and the things that it can buy for them is the motivating factor? What about if our boss promises to give us a 10% raise in salary if we can meet a deadline in our job? My, my, how much faster and more efficiently we can work then! Just offer us anything that is worthwhile having and worth the price of the work and watch us go! You see, it’s not the lack of motivation, it’s the lack of a dream. Give us a dream to chase after and we will get motivated.
My friend, we can learn much from the ants if we would only take a close look at their habits.
But people aren’t ants. We don’t live just on the instincts of survival like they do. We are able to think and to reason and to change our lives and circumstances to make life a lot easier. Sometimes I think that this ability to make our lives easy is a detriment to the growth of our society and our own well being.
The spare time we create, if it isn’t used for something productive, becomes a road block in our path to success because it tends to make us think that we can just sit down and do nothing but rest.
How many of you know that the more you rest, the more you need to rest; the more you sleep, the more you need to sleep; and the less you work, the less you want to work?
“…How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep…”
Proverbs 20:13, "Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty; open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread."
God calls those that love sleep, “sluggards”. I think that’s a pretty good description because there isn’t a more sluggish time of the day than when we first open our eyes in the morning. (Talk about the alarm clocks and the snooze button if appropriate)
There are six habits that identify a sluggard:
1) They sleep too much. Proverbs 26:14, "As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed." Just as a door won’t move in any direction without hanging on to its hinges, so is that person that loves sleep too much. All day long all you hear them say is that they can’t wait to get to bed or to lie down. They go around yawning all the time. (Although I see a lot of people who do the same from lack of sleep too) It’s hard to get them to do anything that takes away from their sleep time. They aren’t going very far from their place of rest.
2) They love to make excuses. Proverbs 22:13, "The slothful man saith, There is a lion without, I shall be slain in the streets." It has been said that if you don’t want to do something that any excuse will do. No one can find more excuses to not do something than the person who is too lazy to do anything.
3) They have a “know-it-all”, un-teachable attitude. Proverbs 26:16, "The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason." They will tell you why they can’t do something and find every reason in the world why they are right in their assumption. You can’t argue with a lazy person and the only thing that will make them move is a lighted stick of dynamite under them. I know a lot of people who will starve do death before they will admit that they are lazy but they won’t work for anything less than top salary.
4) They are procrastinators. They always put things off until the last minute and are always late for everything, if they show up at all. They never finish anything they start but find every excuse for not continuing with any project. They tire very easily and just give up rather than to attempt to improve. They blame everyone and everything else for their own failure to accomplish anything rather than to admit that they are lazy. They are terrible planners, in fact, they don’t plan for anything. They just live from second to second, reacting to whatever comes instead of attempting to change things before they happen.
5) They are irritating to everyone around them, especially those who are busy. Busy people with a vision and a dream to chase don’t have much patience or compassion for those who are not. Proverbs 10:26, "As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so is the sluggard to them that send him." Don’t expect a sluggard to get the job done. If you do, you will always be disappointed. Their inactivity and bad attitude will put a bitter taste in your mouth and make your eyes water with aggravation and you will, most likely, have to do the job yourself anyway.
What is the final condition of a sluggard who is unwilling to change?
Proverbs 19:15, "Slothfulness casteth into a deep sleep; and an idle soul shall suffer hunger."
Their whole life will lack for the things that they desire and need most. Financially, life will be a disaster. They can never satisfy their hunger for things of this earth and especially for the things of God because they aren’t willing to pay the price to have them.
Proverbs 10:4, "He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand: but the hand of the diligent maketh rich."
They will ultimately live in poverty. Not only will they lack for financial wealth but, more importantly, they will lack of spiritual wealth. God will not honor those who refuse to seek after him and work to make their lives acceptable sacrifices to him.
Proverbs 18:9, "He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster."
This speaks of the fact that the lazy person eventually leads their own home into destruction. What man wants to keep a lazy wife or what wife wants to have to support a lazy husband? That marriage, and that home, is headed for destruction unless that one who is the sluggard wakes up and makes the determination to change.
The good news is that even sluggards can change if they really want to. If they will only take a lesson from the ant and force themselves to get moving, they will eventually come out of that sluggish condition. Nothing creates a dream or gives energy like getting into action and making things happen. The sheer satisfaction of accomplishing something worthwhile is usually all it takes to cure the sluggard.
The hard part is that God won’t change you unless you want to be changed bad enough to begin to do something about it yourself. God will not overstep his own pre-imposed limits on taking control of your life. The decision and first effort must come from us. If we are determined to change, decide to change, and then take action to force ourselves to develop the right habits, then God will step in and help us to overcome our slothfulness.
So take a lesson from the ant. Observe their industrious nature. See how they plan for the future and never cease to work to see that the work is done. If we can have a church filled with Christians with that kind of attitude, there is no limit to where God will take us.
