"Wisdom's Work" Proverbs 20 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Tonight we're talking about wisdom's work, how the book of Proverbs describes the doctrine of vocation.

That phrase doctrine of vocation is often associated with Martin Luther in the Protestant Reformation.

And that can strike people as odd because the Protestant Reformation was largely soteriological.

In other words, it was largely about the doctrine of salvation, what grace means, how grace comes to people, how we receive salvation.

That's the doctrine of soteriology, salvation.

And Luther, of course, launched the Protestant Reformation arguing against the Catholic Church's teaching on justification, on regeneration, on the sacraments, the whole sacramental system, the whole idea of the Pope as the head of the church.

All of that is what Luther took on and upended the world, really, by reforming those doctrines.

So it seems odd to have the doctrine of vocation tacked onto the end of it.

Like, oh, and also the doctrine of working that was thrown in there, too.

Not angels, not the Trinity, those doctrines fine, but the doctrine of work, we're bringing that up to the front.

And so that can strike you as odd until you understand what Luther was arguing for when he was talking about the doctrine of vocation.

Vocation is just a fancy word to mean calling, that God has called you, and that can be confusing because sometimes we as evangelicals associate the calling of God only with salvation.

And there's ascension which that's true.

God calls people everywhere.

The Apostle Paul says he's calling all people everywhere to believe.

The word of God goes forward.

David writes into the world like the sun running its course.

There's nowhere its voice isn't heard.

Wherever the word of God goes, it's calling people to believe in the Messiah.

And in the course of the New Testament, we are to call all men to believe.

We're supposed to compel people to follow Christ.

That's the voice of the Lord in this world, calling people to believe in Him.

So the doctrine of vocation certainly talks about salvation, that the calling of God is for you to be saved.

But Luther went further than that.

Luther was one of the architects of what we describe now as two kingdom theology, and of course, that language goes back to Augustine even before that.

But Luther very articulately described the world as this combat or this collision of two kingdoms.

The kingdom of God, where he reigns from his throne over the world, and that is the kingdom of all things spiritual.

And then the kingdom of man, where God has established the kingdom of man, and of course God is over all the kingdoms of men, but God has established kingdoms on earth.

Nations rise, nations fall.

People are doing their work, governments rise and fall.

That's the kingdom of men.

And Luther had a pretty robust distinction between those two.

The Catholic Church had a distinction between those two as well.

But in the Catholic Church, it was only the kingdom of God in a sense that mattered.

And I'm using broad generalizations here, so if you wanted to go deeper than this, you need to go deeper than my broad generalizations.

But in the Catholic Church, generally speaking, it was the kingdom of God that mattered, the kingdom of man, you know, whatever.

And in light of that, in the Catholic world, the only vocation, the only occupation, the only job that truly mattered was the priestly job, that of a monk, somebody who was performing the sacraments.

In fact, the first of the sacraments, in that sense, the most important of them was ordination, the calling of pastoral ministry.

In the Catholic Church, there's seven sacraments, but perhaps the most critical is ordination, because through ordination, the other ones can be performed.

So in the Catholic Church, there was this idea that the priestly class, they were doing kingdom work.

Everybody else, their job was to participate in the mass, only one kind, not both kind, only only one kind of the mass, and their job was to basically mind their business.

It was the priests who were doing the real work of the Lord in the world.

And you see this even with the whole monkery system.

You know, the pinnacle of spirituality in the Catholic Church was with the if a guy, if you wanted, if you're a man and you wanted to be serious about your walk with the Lord, this is what you were called to do.

Leave your family, leave your job, and go to a monastery.

Forget working, let your family fend for itself, and because you're going to go be spiritual.

And that, of course, has a devastating effect on society.

But that was what was celebrated in the Catholic Church for hundreds and hundreds of years.

So Luther upends all that.

This is why in the Catholic Church marriage is diminished.

Of course, the priests aren't married, and Luther upends that he takes a wife.

I've mentioned before that for Luther in the Reformation, it was one thing for him to call the Pope the Antichrist, one thing for him to object to their doctrine of salvation, one thing to do the 95 Theses, all of that.

There was still hope for him to still be part of the Church of Rome until he got married, and then it was all over.

Once he was married, there's no going back.

He's upending family life.

He is what he's doing is he is sanctifying the kingdom of man.

He is showing that as citizens of God, your role in the kingdom of man or the world of man is important.

It is significant.

You don't have to be a priest to have an occupation that matters to the Lord.

So for Luther, the doctrine of vocation, he said, stretches all the way from baptism to resurrection.

Of course, he was in an infant baptistic world, but the principle kind of is the same.

Our doctrine of calling begins with salvation, which is manifested through your baptism and guides you all the way to when the two kingdoms become one until the Lord Jesus returns and establishes his kingdom on the earth.

To have a robust doctrine of vocation, you have to understand the sovereignty of God.

You have to believe that God is sovereign over you, over where you're born, over what opportunities are in front of you, and over what skills he's given you.

That before you are born, and we're good at this with salvation, by the way.

We we have a grid for this with salvation.

We understand the Lord chose us before we were born.

Our name was written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

We get that.

Well, the doctrine of vacation takes that and goes to the workplace.

That before you were born, God knew you.

He's not just making jobs for you.

He is, before you were born, designing the whole world in his sovereign decree.

He's giving you the right skills and placing you in a place where you'll have the right opportunities by his own sovereignty to make a living in this fallen world.

That's the doctrine of vocation.

That he is sovereign, not just over your salvation, but over all that he calls you to do in this world.

From creation to redemption, from baptism to resurrection.

That is the doctrine of vocation.

And God wants you to be at work.

Luther has a cool line that the doctrine of vocation is what joins creation and redemption.

And what he means by that is you are called to work from before the fall.

The creation ordinance is given in Genesis chapter 1 that people were supposed to eat the fruit and subdue the earth.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

And I don't know what subduing the earth looks like before the fall, neither did Adam and Eve.

I don't think they held out very long.

It's repeated after the fall that we're supposed to subdue the earth, which becomes hard.

Now the book of Proverbs enters in at this point.

The book of Proverbs, as I've said, just about every one of our studies in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs is giving you wisdom principles for this world.

And Proverbs, the concept of wisdom, is the ability to live in the world the way God designed it.

The way the world is.

By God's decree, wisdom is the ability to navigate that well.

And so a critical component of wisdom is going to be vocation.

If God has called you to an occupation in this world, He has given you this sovereign calling, and He's given you the ability to do it well, then biblical wisdom is going to be seen in many ways in your vocation.

We're going to look at that tonight as we go through the book of Proverbs.

Wisdom lines us up with work and the world.

I'll give you an outline of working wisely.

Working wisely.

It'll govern us.

There's five points in our outline tonight as we go through this to understand what the book of Proverbs teaches about the doctrine of vocation and how we are supposed to live wisely in this world.

First observation that God designs the world for work.

God designs the world for work.

As I mentioned, he in Genesis 1.28, he calls Adam and Eve to subdue the earth.

Subdue is a work word.

Work is ingrained in the way God made the world before the fall.

Much like marriage.

Marriage is not a result of the fall, neither is work.

Both work and marriage are creation ordinances, meaning God established them before the fall at creation.

In fact, the pattern of creation is designed to teach us that God is the worker.

God created the earth in six days.

So that we would work for six days.

We work for six days to remember that God made the earth in six days.

Now it's not the number six that is important in this, although it gives a certain rhythm to the world and all of that, but it's the concept that God is the creator.

God is the worker.

We work like God works.

Now, not we work like God works, not exactly like God works.

We work and you know, we sweat and we mess things up and we break things and we waste time and you know, we make a mess of our work, and so little of our work it seems is ultimately productive.

That's just the way we're spinning our wheels so much.

God works perfectly.

You know, a carpenter works all week to make a chair, and God says chair.

That's the difference right there.

A farmer is you know breeding goats for years before he gets a flock and God says goats, and there they are.

Nevertheless, the commonality is labor.

That God works and so we work.

God designs the world for work.

And that I just want you to remember that.

If you're feeling frustrated about finding a job, if you're feeling frustrated about providing for your family, it's worth remembering that God did indeed make the world in such a way that the world will give up work to you.

God calls you to a job and he made the world with a job for you to do to provide for your family.

So, first of all, God works.

And you start to see some Proverbs that describe this.

Proverbs 12, verse 11 Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.

Proverbs 12:11

So right here, Solomon is distinguishing in the world, not all energy that is spent is spent profitably.

Not all of so-called work actually does bring home the bacon, so to speak.

There's lots of worthless things people can do.

There's lots of worthless things.

And perhaps you know the kind of person that, you know, you know, tries six jobs.

You know, he takes a job here and does that for a few weeks and then bounces from that to a job over here, and you know, then bounces over there, and he never can he can never just quite find his calling.

He's drifting this way.

He's like a butterfly that has no hive.

You know, he's just going back and forth all over the place.

And that kind of action is not going to produce profit.

It's not going to produce labor.

It's lacking sense.

It's where somebody just can't figure out what they're doing in life.

They don't have a sense of their calling in life.

And of, you know, that's also called college, I guess, for some people.

But the idea is that you grow up, you know, you get out of college and you find a job that you can actually earn a living from, knowing that God has called you to do that.

The contrast with that worthless fellow who's, you know, going back and forth is the person who works his land.

He'll have plenty of bread.

In other words, somebody, it's not that agrarian life is the only biblical life.

He's just making the point that if God puts a field in front of you for you to plant and farm, and you will eat from it.

And there, you've solved your problem.

Of course, that can be agrarian in our world.

You're likely not going to be a farmer.

God has given you something else to do.

And if it's put you in a so-called field in an opportunity for work and labor, and you do it and you're working, you're going to be able to eat your food.

Because God made the world in such a way that work produces food.

You labor so that you can eat.

You're providing.

You're not just spinning your wheels.

This is sanctified.

God wants you to work to provide for your family.

And this, of course, back in the creation words is predominantly the husband's job.

It was the husband that was called to subdue the earth.

The wife, remember, when she was made, was called to be a helper to her husband.

It's often been said that the man is called to the job and the the wife is called to the husband.

Now, of course, there that looks different in every marriage and every context, and I don't even want to go down all the different, you know, practical ways that can work out.

But I just want you to understand big picture what scripture has in mind.

That the husband is supposed to be laboring to provide for your family.

The single person is supposed to be laboring to provide for himself, for herself.

A person who follows worthless pursuits never lacks any sense.

I've told you this before about worthless pursuits, a trap that college students often fall into is taking a job where they pay for the job, not the other way around.

That's the definition of worthless.

And you go through it and they're like, and now you just have to give us money, and then you can have a job.

That's not the way jobs work.

Do you understand that?

Jobs pay you, you don't pay them.

If you're paying them, that's called a scam or a, to use the language of Proverbs, a worthless pursuit.

And some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, who falls for that kind of stuff?

Oh, all the time people fall for that kind of stuff.

Jobs are something you get paid for.

And when you go to work, you will have plenty of bread.

Proverbs 12 verse 14.

Proverbs 12:14

Something similar.

The fruit of his mouth, the from the fruit of his mouth, a man is satisfied with a good.

We looked at that proverb earlier under the heading of speech.

But the second half of it is important for tonight.

The work of a man's hand comes back to him.

It's like a boomerang style.

You do work, it comes back in the form of food.

You plant something, eight months later, you have food.

You feed a baby goat, you know, a year or two later, you have food.

That's the idea.

Your hand does stuff and you get paid for it.

You don't get paid instantly.

Sometimes it takes a week or two for the paycheck to clear, but that's the idea.

If you're doing work, you get paid.

That's the cycle of the world.

Proverbs 13, verse 23.

Proverbs 13:23

The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.

There's a lot going on in this proverb.

But notice fallow just is a word for it, it hasn't been plowed.

The poor person has a field in his house, but he hasn't plowed it.

Since he hasn't plowed it, he can't plant it.

Since he didn't plant it, he can't water it, and since he didn't water it, there's nothing growing.

Since there's nothing growing, he can't eat.

But it's interesting that Solomon calls that injustice.

Why is it injustice?

And if you think about it, it's because in this concept of work, your labor is not, it doesn't just terminate on you.

Your labor is supposed to be a blessing towards other people as well.

You're supposed to have enough through your work that you can give.

You're supposed to have enough for work to provide for your family and to help your friends in the New Testament context to help your church.

So the the person who doesn't do that, the person who doesn't labor, all his potential value is swept away.

Again, ancient Near East, it's an agrarian society, so Solomon is talking in farming language here, but the same principle is true today.

Even if you don't have a field, you have abilities, you have opportunities through being in your world today.

You have abilities and opportunities that have been given to you.

So when you labor for them, that produces value and worth in society for you to be generous for others.

If you don't do that, your ability is just sit there like an empty field.

And the lazy person doesn't understand this.

The lazy person doesn't understand why it's injustice.

But the truth is, a person not working is robbing the ground of what it can provide.

So, first point, God designs the world for work.

Secondly, work can be honest and honorable.

Work can be honest and it can be honorable.

Because God designed the world this way, the person who works with diligence and with integrity is himself a blessing.

He's honorable, he's dignified.

God himself is a worker, so when you work with integrity, you are demonstrating the greatness of God in you, the dignity of God and the value of God as resonant in your own life.

There's a sense in which that is the image of God.

Your ability to labor and produce something of value is very God like.

But it's also honorable.

People who work well are deserving of honor.

Proverbs 12, verse 9.

Proverbs 12:9

Better to be lowly and have a servant than to play the great man and lack bread.

So that's kind of a funny proverb.

Better to be lowly and have a servant, because for the Americans, we think lowly and have a servant.

Somebody with a servant is rich in our world.

Like it's the rich that have servants, because we're thinking like the antebellum south, you know, you have to have money to have that kind of servants.

But in most of the world, that's not true.

In most of the world, the poor people have servants, even.

There's always someone lower on the totem pole, so to speak.

That was certainly true in the ancient Near East.

The poor people still had servants.

So it's better to be so humble with like your one measly servant, but to have honor and integrity, than it is for you to act like someone you're not, to act like you're so accomplished, to act puffed up, to go beyond your abilities and not have any bread.

There's another similar proverb that says the same thing that says that basically the servants mock you.

To have to be someone that kind of that the servants see through.

Proverbs 12, 24, something similar.

The hand of the diligent will rule, while the sloth will be put to forced labor.

The diligent person is honored.

Somebody who works well is honored.

And that's true with any occupation.

Diligence is how you advance.

I remember back in uh California, our churches, the church I was working at, the executive pastor took me and some other guys from the college ministry to go see this soda shop.

It was a soda shop in Pasadena, and we went there, and this guy owns a soda shop, and it was it was a big store.

I mean, it was probably the size of the stage right here that I'm on, and it was wall-to-wall soda, and this guy looked like uh he looked like I don't know, he was wearing like blue overalls and he had a striped shirt on, and he had like kind of a straw hat on.

He looked like a cartoon character.

And he was so excited about his sodas.

He was telling us stories about each one of them.

You tell him what flag and the flavors you like, he's got a whole wall of them, and it was a sort of a surreal experience to go through that, the soda shopping experience in Pasadena.

But when we left, the pastor who took me there said, you know, I wanted you guys to see that because somebody who's that excited about his work is going to prosper no matter what he does.

And that's kind of been ingrained in my mind ever since then.

Somebody who is good and excited about what God has given them to do, even if it is selling sodas, they're going to be honored.

Like people will drive from a distance to see that kind of person.

Better to be that kind of person than the lazy person who grudgingly goes to work and harumps around every corner, who complains and drags his feet.

There's no honor in that.

Even if you have a job and you bring your paycheck home, nobody respects you.

It's this kind of a sad existence.

Meanwhile, the hand of the diligent person, the person who's actually working hard with some joy in their life, it doesn't matter what they do.

The trash man who is excited about the trash cans and slides them down the street back to your driveway.

You like that guy.

Diligence is how you advance.

It doesn't matter what job you're in.

It doesn't matter if you're a trash man or an attorney.

It doesn't matter if you're the barber or the baker.

If you are diligent at what you do, you enjoy it and you do it with energy and delight, you'll advance in that world.

Advancement looks different in all those worlds, but you will be honored.

The diligent person is honored.

That's the statement of Proverbs.

Proverbs 22, verse 29.

Proverbs 22:29

If you see a man skillful in his work, he's gonna stand before kings.

He won't stand before obscure men.

Solomon doesn't say what kind of work the guy's in.

He's just making the statement.

The person who is diligent is honored.

This is Jesus' parable of Demena.

Remember, it's the person who does his work well that is rewarded with more in the next life.

Society respects people who delight and who are diligent and who are skillful in their work, no matter what their job is.

And he who guards His master will be honored.

When you look at that proverb, you start to see a class distinction now.

The farmer here is going to have food for himself.

But the person who's guarding his master, so now you start to have language that creates a social stratification here, a lower class person who's just working for somebody above him.

If he does it well, even that lower position, if he does it well, he's going to be honored.

He will be honored.

Like I said, the soda guy, you can think of your own examples.

We've had a tree guy come over to our house before who's so excited about trees.

You know, we had a tree that we were nervous about, and we had different tree guys who are like, I'll do this, I'll do that for this amount of money.

And then we had the tree guy that we went with came over and he's like, oh, this is, and he tells us the whole story of the life cycle of the tree, and he's so excited, naming the squirrels in it.

We're like, we want that guy.

It doesn't matter your job.

If you're excited and diligent about it, you're going to be honored.

So first, God made the world for you to have work.

Second, work can be honest and it can be honorable.

And thirdly, work is well, this is the bad news.

Work, turns out, after all, is said and done.

Work is work.

Work is appropriately named.

We exert labor.

We're not like God, who, in this sense, who just effortlessly creates, who speaks and it exists.

God speaks non-creation into creation.

We are not like Him.

We labor and it requires energy.

We have to have lunch breaks at our work.

It's more than something negotiated by the Union.

It's just the reality.

If you don't eat your lunch, you're not going to be working hard in the afternoon.

That's because work requires exertion.

Proverbs 14:4 says it in kind of a humorous way.

Proverbs 14:4

This proverb makes me laugh.

Where there's no oxen, the manger is clean.

But abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.

So if you're not working hard in your fields, you don't have to clean out the cattle stall.

But if you've got a thriving flock, guess what?

There's secondary work that comes with that.

If you've got corn growing everywhere, you're going to have to take care of the stall.

You know, this is a favorite proverb of mine when I'm parenting.

You look at the house, and the house has just been destroyed.

A hurricane went through it, Christmas boxes every which way.

You know, there's a way to have a pristine and clean house.

To not have people living in it.

Once you insert people into the equation, you have stuff going on in there.

You know, an empty cattle stall, you don't need to clean that.

But once you start planting things, once you start growing things, once you start having life around you in the world, you have things to clean.

That's because work requires work.

You know, if you don't make anything, you don't have to take care of anything.

If you take care of something, it's likely because you acquired it through work.

This is where sloth enters into the world.

The lazy person, he doesn't make anything.

The lazy person doesn't produce value.

The lazy person just turns on the bed back and forth.

Because work creates work, and he doesn't want that.

This is captured really well in Proverbs 20, verse 4.

Proverbs 20:4

The sluggard doesn't plow in autumn.

He will seek it harvest and have nothing.

So autumn's when you plow the field.

Because winter, it's too uh, you know, it can be too hard to plow the field.

So autumn, after you harvest the crops, you do the first plow, that's the most important plow.

You'll probably plow it again in the spring.

But by plowing the field in autumn, and I have to say this because we're in Northern Virginia, we're it's not an agrarian society.

You guys work for you know Boeing, not for uh not for caterpillar, or those that work for caterpillar are designing things, not plowing the field.

So I'm helping you out here.

You plow the field in the autumn because the harvest has been done, you're turning over the soil, that helps the nutrients re uh you know, repopulate the soil and all that.

If you leave the soil having plowed it, the soil gets depleted and it won't grow again.

So you have to plow it in autumn.

And you know what you have to show for your field after you plowed it in autumn?

Nothing.

Because you don't seed it then, you don't do anything to it then, you just plow it then to prepare it for next spring when you might plow it the second time to seed it.

Now the lazy person looks at that field in autumn and won't plow.

In fact, uh I had one commentator who said the way this is worded in Hebrew is almost like a giving of an excuse that the causal force of this is on its autumn.

The lazy person says, It's autumn, so I'm not gonna plow.

Who says, Hey, why would I plow in the autumn?

You don't plow in the autumn, you can plow in the spring, it'll be fine.

Do you think that attitude is gonna be someone who plows in the spring?

Probably not.

So what happens?

The guy doesn't plow, which means he doesn't plant, which means harvest season rolls and rounds, and he's gonna go out to his field and be surprised nothing's growing there.

I have a field, where's the food?

Work produces work, and the lazy person won't do it.

Work requires preparation.

You know, we do understand that part of it.

Many jobs require preparation.

You have to go to school, you have to get certified, you have to get licensed, you have to do all kinds of stuff to have many jobs.

The lazy person doesn't want that kind of effort.

What do you mean I need to go to school for four years for I can have that kind of job?

What a waste.

That's the way the lazy person thinks.

Proverbs 29, 15.

Lazy person goes on.

Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep.

And an idle person will suffer hunger.

Proverbs 21, 25 says something similar.

Desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.

Work produces work, but laziness produces sleep in order to avoid work and boredom.

Softfulness casts you into a deep sleep.

Because people don't want to work.

You know, sleep is a gift from the Lord, isn't it?

If you're a person who has a hard time sleeping at night, you understand what a blessed gift sleep is.

You understand how miserable you can be without sleep.

Sleep is a gift from the Lord, but why is sleep a gift from the Lord?

Because you're replenishing your body, you're strengthening, there's ways in which your mind resets, your mind's working while you're sleeping, taking some memories and putting them in long term, giving patterns, sealing them in there, putting things you're supposed to do at the front of your mind.

Like your mind is doing work while you're sleeping and sorting things out.

If you can't sleep, you don't have that happening.

You can't remember what day the is trash day.

You can't remember if the cat is in or out.

You can't remember your kids' names if you're not sleeping.

You sleep in order to replenish.

Now, for work, you sleep in order so you can be productive at work.

That's why you sleep.

But the lazy person doesn't want work.

They do want sleep.

God gave sleep to prepare you for work.

The lazy person just takes the fruit and rejects the root, just takes the sleep and doesn't do the labor that's supposed to necessitate sleep.

So they're just in a deep sleep.

They don't want to work.

And so they're going to be hungry.

They're going to not have food.

And maybe their parents will bail them out, maybe their friends will bail them out, but eventually they're going to be hungry.

This is what Proverbs 21, 25 means.

That the sluggard, his desire kills him because his hands refuse to work.

He wants to do something, but man, it's just he can't actually do it.

He gets up in the morning, he's like, Today I want to do this, this, this, and this.

And he goes to bed after four naps and is like, man, I didn't do this, this, this, and this.

Tomorrow, though.

Eventually that gets aggravating, doesn't it?

Aggravating.

I talked to a gym uh owner recently who told me that 60% of people who take gym memberships never attend the gym.

Never attend, 60%.

I was at the C.S.

Lewis Institute yesterday, and a guy who was there said that uh 73% was his number of people who take gym memberships in January and never go to the gym.

And he was pretty clear, not just one time, he's talking never.

But the the gym owner, this guy at XFitness that I met a few days ago, uh, told me that in their business, 60% of their members never attend.

That's what he means when he says, it's gotta kill you, what Solomon means.

It's gonna kill you.

You have such desires, but you can't get your body into the place.

Now, gym aside, that's just that's just life for the slugger.

They want to do this, they want to eat, man, they want a job, but they just can't bring themselves to actually do the application.

No effort means no fruit.

Because they don't want to work.

Well, work should lead to generosity and to blessing.

Number four, work should lead to generosity and blessing.

This is the way God designed it.

Work should make you a generous person, it should allow you to be a blessing to other people.

God designed work so that as you labor, you provide for your family, and as you labor, you provide for those in need.

The Lord understands the way the sinful world works, and you understand He understands that there are people who are uh their husbands leaving them or unable to work for it to provide for their family, or through injury, their husband is injured, or something like that.

There's all kinds of circumstances in life that make somebody unable to work.

That's why it's so important for those who do work to be able to provide for others who need it.

Proverbs 14, 23, in all toil there is profit.

And that word profit is highlighting.

There's there's excess, there's something you're taking home.

But mere talk lends only to poverty.

Now, a reminder here, it says all toil.

Just a reminder, part of the Protestant work ethic here, the only jobs that are noble, you know, in Catholicism, the only jobs that are noble are the religious jobs.

We reject that.

In the Protestant world, the only jobs that are noble are those that are a blessing to people, or those that add value to society.

So sinful jobs are not noble.

Sinful jobs don't bring any real profit to the world, but only harm.

And so this is, you know, narrowed here to jobs that actually produce something, that actually provide a value or service to people.

And when you're able to understand how your job helps the world, how your job helps your neighbor, how your job as the bus driver helps people get to work, how your job, no matter what it is, is actually doing a service in society.

Then you realize there's profit to it and you receive payment for it.

That's a blessing to you and to others.

It adds wealth.

Your work adds wealth to society, your payment adds wealth to yourself.

And here's where a comparison to religion is really helpful.

The same thing is true in your Christian walk.

There are some people whose Christian faith is only profession, it's just all talk.

There's no actual godliness, there's no growth in godliness in their life.

They're just, it's just mere talk.

That ends in poverty.

But in any effort for the Lord, there's always fruit, there's always blessing.

Proverbs 21, 26.

All day long.

The sluggard craves and craves, but the righteous gives and doesn't hold back.

The sluggard is just, he's always wanting things.

The righteous person is always giving things.

Because the righteous person has worked and he has stuff to give.

This is why Ephesians 4, 28.

Paul tells the people in the church who are stealing, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him get a job, and his his repentance from stealing is complete when he does honest work.

That's Paul's phrase.

Honest work with his own hands.

You have to clarify this with the thief, don't you?

Thief, you need to get a job.

An honest job with your own hands, so that you have something to share with those in need.

That's when the thief's repentance is complete.

Solomon has the same thing in mind in Proverbs 21, 26.

So, take all these together.

God designed the world for work.

Work can be honest and honorable.

Work is, well, it is work.

But work should produce generosity and blessing.

On the other hand, laziness causes difficulty and harm.

Laziness causes difficulty and harm.

The sluggard is the opposite of all of these things.

This is why laziness is a moral issue.

Laziness is indeed a moral issue.

Whoever is slothful, Solomon says, will not roast his game.

He acquired game somehow.

The bird got caught in the trap.

Yay, he caught a bird.

But man, he's too lazy to cook the bird.

What a waste.

But the diligent man, he's going to gain wealth.

He's going to.

Proverbs 13, verse 4.

Proverbs 13:4

The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.

For the person who is lazy, he just wants things and he doesn't have them.

This makes the lazy person's life so hard.

And they can't figure out why it's hard.

They always have lifts of things to do.

Things are never going right at work.

Things are never going right at home.

Things are never going right in their life.

They are always running into problems because they don't do what they're supposed to do.

It's that simple.

They don't do what they're required to do, and so everything is hard for them.

They crave and crave, and they don't get anything.

They want to go to the gym, they get the membership, they just don't actually do it.

In contrast, 1 Corinthians 9 27, Paul says, I discipline my body.

Physical training is of little value, Paul says, but there is great gain in godliness that has to be pursued.

Proverbs 15, 19.

The way of a sluggard is like a hedge of thorns.

But the path of the righteous is like a highway.

My family was just with uh my extended family in California, and take my kids walking to a grocery store that wasn't far away, and walking on uh Nordoff Boulevard in Granada Hills, we walked by a house, and it was a very odd house.

I'd never really seen anything like this.

It has a gate in front of it, like an iron gate in front of it, and they grew out from their gate on both sides a hedge that was a fence, like a fence hedge.

So they grew, it was kind of thick vines, and it grew up, they were like six, seven feet tall, all the way across, it's a major road, all the way across the road, fencing everybody.

And the only way into their house is through the gates, but if you lock the gate, it's odd to see just a fence that's made of leaves.

And you could push yourself through it if you wanted to.

And as I'm walking around with the kids, my kids were like, I think a thief could get through there.

Like, yeah, a thief probably somebody with hedge clippers could get through there.

It's not really that secure if you have hedge clippers.

I guess it's designed to slow the thief down enough.

Like if a thief looks at the house and says, That house doesn't need hedge clippers, this house does need hedge clippers.

Thieves are probably lazy, I think.

I'm just guessing.

So I'll go to the house without hedge clippers, do that one first.

So I guess it's effective in that regard.

And then I come across this proverb: the way the sluggard is like that.

And so I'm thinking, in what way is the sluggard like the hedge of thorns?

Well, the sluggard's like the hedge of thorns because he's planted his own fence and then is annoyed by its existence.

Everything's hard for him.

He's got to crawl through a hedge to get to his house.

Where'd the hedge come from?

He planted it.

He didn't plant crops, he planted his own obstacles.

The sluggard is the person that is slowed down by their own laziness.

That's why their life is so hard.

It's their fault.

Everything's hard for the sluggard.

Everything's hard.

Indecision makes life hard.

The sluggard is sometimes just simply indecisive.

He can't make a decision.

He's stuck at the stoplight and doesn't know which way to go.

He doesn't move.

And that extrapolates to everything in life.

Indecisiveness and laziness are hand in glove.

They're too lazy to make a decision, and that makes everything hard.

He can't decide which crop to plant, so he doesn't plant a crop.

He can't decide when to plow, so he doesn't plow.

And everything is now hard for him.

Meanwhile, the righteous, that dude's zooming by on an elevated freeway.

That guy's on a high-speed train, it looks like, doesn't it?

The path of the upright's a level highway.

Lazy dude stuck in the bushes.

Proverbs 20, verse 13.

Proverbs 20:13

Don't love sleep.

Unless poverty is going to come upon you.

Open your eyes.

You'll have plenty of bread.

The lazy person thinks, oh man, I just don't have any money.

I don't have any food.

Well, get out of bed.

Get out of bed.

People often wish for a longer life and then waste it in their bed.

Squandering it in excess sleep to avoid work.

Why do you want a longer life?

It's good to want a long life to be productive, to provide for your family.

This is what Paul says.

A lazy person wants a longer life but doesn't want to be productive with it.

A couple other verses.

Here, Proverbs 24, verse 30.

Proverbs 24:30

This is a longer passage, so I want you to look at it.

24, verse 30.

Solomon goes narrative on us.

I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense.

And behold, it was all overgrown with thorns.

The ground was covered with the nettles.

Its stone wall was broken down, and I looked at it, and I considered it.

I looked at it and I received instruction.

A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and once like an armed man.

That dude did not go to bed one day and say, I'm gonna wake up tomorrow and never mow the grass again.

That's not what happened.

He just decided he's not gonna mow the grass today.

Then he decided the same thing tomorrow.

And then the next day, after a few weeks, he needs the bigger lawn mower, he needs a weed whacker, which he's got to borrow from somebody, and that guy's far away.

Next thing you know, winter.

Well, that's hard to mow when it's dormant.

Next thing you know spring, chunk.

And now he's just he you know, it looks like an abandoned yard.

And Solomon stops and looks at it.

Like, how quickly that comes.

Just sleep a little bit longer and suddenly you don't have any food.

Turn over to Proverbs 26, verse 13.

Proverbs 26:13

Proverbs 26, verse 13, the sluggard says, There's a lion in the road.

Proverbs 26:13

There's a lion in the streets.

This same proverb is repeated in Proverbs 22, verse 13.

Proverbs 22:13

There the sluggard gives an excuse.

There's a lion outside, I'll be killed in the streets.

Here in Proverbs 26, he doesn't give you the excuse.

He just says it, there's a lion in the road.

There's a lion in the streets.

That used to be a mystery to me until I claimed it one day.

I claimed it.

There were reports of a mountain lion on the loose where I was living in LA.

And so I thought, man, it's just better for me not to go to work.

You never know where that mountain lion will turn up.

You don't know?

It's dangerous out there.

Hall, that's what the sluggard says.

There's a lion in the streets.

Get out of bed, you fool.

There's a lion in the streets.

What a lame excuse.

But the sluggard's reaching for anything here.

It's reaching for anything.

I can't I can't go to work.

There's you know, a derecho coming.

Come on.

Get out of your house.

As a door turns on its hinges, verse 14, so a sluggard is on his bed.

What a cool word picture that is.

I looked at I looked at look at that person on their bed a few minutes ago.

They're facing the other way.

Look, they're being productive.

They totally turned over.

That's the sluggard.

And at least the door has a function in life.

I know biologically, teenagers need more sleep.

I have nobody in mind.

The sluggard buries his hand in the bowl, it says.

And it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.

That Proverbs also Proverbs 19, verse 24.

Proverbs 19:24

But here's in chapter 26.

He gets his hand in the dish.

They have those communal dishes, which are gross by American standards, those big dishes.

You put your hand in it, you get a little bit of the bread, you scoop up the soup in it, so you've got the bread in it, the soup in it.

It actually takes a little bit of work.

Gotta get a soup in the hand, and now you've got to bring it to your mouth, or it's gonna spill everywhere.

That's the way they would often eat.

Again, gross by American standards, that's the way they eat.

The sluggard does all the work, gets the bread in his hand, gets a soup in his hand like this, and then it's just stuck.

Like I can't quite get it.

Can't quite get it.

And it's impossible to correct the sluggard, verse 16.

He's wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly.

You can't correct him.

You can't say, hey, you're being lazy.

His response, hey, you're being lazy.

His response, there's a lion outside.

Don't tell me otherwise.

He's wiser in his own eyes than seven dudes with the job.

The sluggard is smarter than all those seven guys with the job.

This is why the New Testament repeats these kind of admonitions.

2 Thessalonians 3.

Paul says, We hear that some among you are walking in idleness and Not busy at work, but your busybodies.

Such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and earn their own living.

It is a command for Paul not to give money to people that won't work.

It wastes money and it doesn't help them.

Of course, there's people that are injured and all of the exception causes, but the general principle, if somebody don't work, Paul says they don't eat.

You try to correct them, you try to help them get a job.

Oh, they're so much smarter than you.

So much smarter.

So wrapping this all up, the conclusion here, turn over to Proverbs 27, verse 23.

Proverbs 27:23

Proverbs 27, 23.

This is the section of Proverbs, it's kind of the royal Proverbs, so it's got uh somewhat of a king in mind, written uh particularly for um King Hezekiah.

He passed them, they're gonna get down to him, but here, kind of a royal proverb, but it applies to us as well.

Proverbs 27, verse 23.

Proverbs 27:23

Know well the condition of your flocks.

Give attention to your herds.

That's discipline.

God's given you things, pay attention to the skills he's given you.

It's not just talking about flocks, it's whatever God has given you to do.

Know how well you're doing on it.

Have some introspection.

Know how your job is going.

Give attention to your herds.

Because riches don't last forever.

So that sounds contradictory.

Pay attention to your job, be aware of how well you're doing at it because the money doesn't last.

But it's not contradictory because he explains what he means.

A crown doesn't endure to all generations.

Whatever promotions you get now, whatever, that's ridiculous.

Because the grass is going to go away, new growth will appear, vegetation in the mountains will be gathered, the lambs will provide your clothing, and the goats the price of a field.

There will be enough goat's milk for your food and for the food of your household and for the maintenance of your girls.

That's a really almost pastoral picture.

Salma says, pay attention to your job.

And he paints this quaint picture.

Pay attention to your work, know how well you're going, because you know, whatever you're doing, that job is going to be phased out.

Technology will overcome it, it'll be gone.

The seasons will change, life will go on, you'll die one day.

It's all happening.

But if you work hard and you work well and you're aware of how well you're doing and you're providing for your family, there's joy in that.

He paints this picture of a joyful family, a joyful situation.

Your work provides milk for your family while you're alive.

It provides clothes for them that'll exist after you die.

You're leaving them something.

Even maintenance for your girls.

Commentators get all wrapped up.

Oh, girls were the ones that were predominantly milking the goats, and that's why Solomon uses the girls here.

I don't really buy it.

You know, the sons can go work.

You know, you can go get a job, boy.

But he's painting this picture here of a guy that works hard for his family, and when he dies, he leaves them things, and their daughters delight in life.

That's what's waiting for you if you work hard.

If you know what's around you.

There's joy in the labors for the Lord.

That's the goal of your work.

To provide for your family and to honor the Lord while you do it.

Lord, we're grateful that you have called us to more than just existence.

You've called us to delighting in honoring you.

We're so thankful that you've given us skills, you've given us work, you've given us labor and opportunity.

Pray for those in our congregation that have retired, that have worked hard to provide for their families and are now resting.

We're thankful for them and for their example and for how they have worked with dignity and honor throughout their life.

Pray for the young men and women in our congregation that are here tonight.

I pray that you give them courage and discernment as they think through where you are calling them to labor for you.

And Lord, for everybody in between there, we're so thankful for the way our families are provided for you, given each of us a different kind of opportunity, and we're so thankful for them.

We know everything good comes from your hand, and so we receive it with joy and thankfulness.

In the name of Christ we pray.

Amen.

And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thanks for joining us.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.

For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to TMS.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.