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Colin Smith: If you can live with and answer these four questions well, you will be a very productive person. What do I need to begin? Where do I need to stay focused? What do I need to complete? And when do I need to rest?

Steve Hiller: Welcome to *Open the Bible* with Pastor Colin Smith. We’re continuing our study in the book of Proverbs, taking a look at how we apply wisdom to different areas of our lives. I think all of us want to be productive in work, but Colin, we begin today by taking a look at the profile of an unproductive person.

Colin Smith: Yeah, that’s exactly what I don’t want to be like, and no one listening to us wants to be an unproductive person. Think about this: the Lord Jesus Christ completed all the work that the Father gave him to do. Isn’t that remarkable? He completed everything that the Father gave him to do, and we want to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord has given you work that you are to do. We are his workmanship, we read in Ephesians, and we’re created for good works that God has prepared in advance for us to do. So, whatever your situation, there is something that God has for you to complete. You want to fulfill it. You want to be like the Lord Jesus Christ in that regard.

So, we want to be the opposite of the unproductive person. But I find it very helpful, Steve, just to look in Proverbs at what makes a person unproductive. Sometimes we learn by following an example; other times we learn by way of contrast. We look at what we don’t want to be, the opposite of what God calls us to be, and then we see more clearly what it is that we have to do and what it is that we have to pursue.

Steve Hiller: Well, as you just heard, we’re going to be looking at that from the book of Proverbs. If you have your Bible handy, hope you’ll grab that and join us there as we’re going to be looking at several different passages today. But let’s get going with our message called "Work." Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: We’re looking today at the theme of work or, more particularly, its opposite. Proverbs introduces to us a rather tragic character whose life ends in ruin. His name is the sluggard. The sluggard is referred to 14 times in the book of Proverbs and twice in the verses that have just been read for us.

Now, this rather tragic character is sometimes presented in comic terms. For example, Chapter 19 and verse 24 that was read: "The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth." So, take in the picture. Here’s the sluggard, and he sits down at the table, and food is put in front of him. He loads the food that’s in the dish onto the fork, but that’s as far as he gets. Lifting the fork to his mouth, oh, that’s just too much effort for this man.

Then we read in Chapter 26 and verse 14: "As a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed." That is a marvelous picture. The problem with the sluggard is not just that he likes to lie in bed; he’s hinged to the bed. So he turns one way, and then he turns the other way, and he never gets up. It’s a marvelous comic image. It’s like a caricature, as we would say today.

Or what about this one, Chapter 22 and verse 13? The sluggard is always full of excuses, always has a reason for not doing what needs to be done. And how’s this for an excuse? The sluggard says, "There is a lion outside! I shall be killed in the street!" I can’t go out to work today. If you’re doing a SWOT analysis, everything that the sluggard sees is in the threat category. He is risk-averse. There’s always a reason for not doing what needs to be done.

Now, we read Proverbs like these; they’re meant to make us smile. They’re meant to make us laugh. They’re also meant to make us think. And we recognize in the caricature the great dangers of laziness. Now, I have no doubt that the vast majority of us here in this congregation today work very, very hard indeed. And if that is true of you, I am sure that your natural reaction will be to think, "Ah, this message is for other people. I’m safe today. It’s not for me." Well, not so fast. There is, I promise, something here for each and every one of us, no matter how hard-working today.

I want to begin here with the profile of an unproductive person. If you bring together what Proverbs says across the book about the sluggard, there are four distinctive marks that make him an unproductive person. The first, of course, is that he is slow to start. Chapter 20 and verse 4: "The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and he’ll have nothing."

So, Proverbs draws our attention to the long-term effects of putting off the things that we need to do now. And there is, of course, a season for plowing, and then there is a season for sowing, and then there is a season for reaping. But plowing, of course, is very hard work, and the sluggard doesn’t want to do it.

The context here is very important because remember that when God’s people came into the land of Canaan, every family was given a plot of land. God gave them. Remember in the book of Deuteronomy, God gave them homes that they did not build, wells that they did not dig, vineyards that they did not plant. God gave them the means of sustaining themselves. Everything they needed for life was theirs, and it was all given to them freely by the grace and the abundance of Almighty God. Their part, then, was to work the fields they were given.

And so working the field that God had freely given was the work to which God had called these particular people who are being addressed here in the book of Proverbs. But the sluggard is slow to start the work that God has given him to do. He does not plow in autumn. So when the harvest comes, all of his neighbors are gathering in the grain or the produce of their land. They’re gathering in what will sustain them now for another year. But the sluggard has nothing.

Now, perhaps most famously, the book of Proverbs challenges the lazy person by drawing a contrast between the sluggard and the example that we find in the world of insects. Chapter 6 and verse 6: "Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways and be wise." So here we’re getting the contrast between a person, the sluggard, who does not prepare for the future, and little insects, the ants, who do.

Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she, the ant, prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. In other words, these tiny little insects are wise enough to know that what you do now relates to the outcome that will be in the future. These little insects know that you have to prepare for the future, and they do it without supervision.

The unproductive person needs to be closely supervised all the time. But the ants, there’s no supervision over them at all. They by instinct know that there is work that needs to be done, and it needs to be done now, and they get on with it without any chief, without anyone watching, without any overseer, and without any ruler. But the sluggard delays. He postpones. He procrastinates. "Oh, it’s not very good weather today. I’ll get around to plowing tomorrow." And of course, he never does.

He’s slow to start. Second, the unproductive person is easily distracted. Chapter 28 and verse 19: "Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits will have plenty of poverty." Worthless pursuits. What keeps the sluggard from doing the work that God has called him to do, stewarding that which God has entrusted to him? What keeps him from doing that is that he is easily distracted. He lacks focus. He follows worthless pursuits.

And of course, the person who is fascinated with everything never accomplishes anything. And we live in a world of constant distraction from the moment we get up in the morning to the end of the day. Now, this is important. The reason that this sluggard has nothing at harvest is not that he made some determined decision, "I’m not going to plow." No, it’s simply that he never got around to it. Other things got in the way. He was distracted. And when you look at the things that distracted him, none of them amounted to anything that had any long-term significance.

Look at Chapter 6 and verses 9 and 10: "How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep?" Now notice what comes next. "A little sleep," just a little, "a little slumber, a little folding of hands to rest." You see the point here? Just a little. "I’ll get around to my plowing, don’t worry. Don’t lecture me. Right now I just feel like I need a little sleep. Actually, not even a little sleep, just a little slumber. Actually, if I don’t doze off, that doesn’t matter. Just let me sit in my chair and fold my hands just for a few minutes."

And so he does, and then there’s another distraction. "I’ll just do this first, and then I’ll get around to what God has called me to do, my plowing." Too many concessions, too many postponements, too many delays, and it all happens little by little. So understand why the sluggard has no harvest. It’s not because he made some grand refusal, "I’m never going to plow." It’s because through a thousand small concessions to his flesh, he never got around to the work that God was calling him to do.

So, he’s slow to start. Second, he’s easily distracted. And of course, what follows from that is that he doesn’t finish. Chapter 12 and verse 27: "Whoever is slothful will not roast his game, but the diligent man will get precious wealth." So here is a place where the sluggard has finally got started. He does need to eat. And so he goes and he gets some game. He finds the food, and he brings it home. But of course, then he gets distracted. He loses interest. And so he doesn’t see it through to completion. He moves on to something else, and he never gets around to cooking the meat he’s brought home. He does not roast his game.

Now, notice then the pattern here. There’s something that’s important for us. The pattern of this person’s life is he is always moving on to something else. Something new catches his eye, and off he goes, leaving behind a trail of incomplete projects and of unfinished business. Things that he started, but he didn’t continue and, as a result, never completed.

And that takes us to the fourth mark of the unproductive person, which is, surprisingly, that he never rests. And I say surprisingly because we saw earlier that the sluggard is hinged to his bed. But here’s the irony. The person who keeps putting off what he knows has to be done is a person who ultimately can never rest. Even when he sleeps, he doesn’t really rest because always at the back of his mind is the sense of "I have not yet done what I need to do."

God rested when? On the seventh day, when his work was complete. And the price of keeping putting off what you know God has called you to do is that even when you sleep, you never really rest. So Chapter 13 and verse 4: "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." Notice here we have a proverb about the soul, about your own inner experience. And you see, it’s not just that the barns of the sluggard are empty; the soul of the sluggard is empty as well. Laziness will empty your wallet, but it will do something worse as well. It will destroy your soul because constantly avoiding what God is calling you to do is soul-destroying.

And that’s the experience of the sluggard, and that’s why he never really rests. Instead, the soul of the sluggard craves. Oh, he wants a harvest. Oh, he’d like to be like his neighbors who are seeing the benefit of their diligence and their focus and their work. But he doesn’t have one, and he won’t do what it takes to get one. So he gets nothing, Proverbs says.

Now, no one here or anywhere else wants to be anything like the sluggard, right? None of us wants to be like this. But the sluggard’s profile actually gives us a really helpful grid to work with in terms of what it takes to become a more productive person. Here are the four questions to ask: What do I need to begin? Where do I need to stay focused? What do I need to complete? And when do I need to rest? If you can live with and answer these four questions well, you will be a very productive person. What do I need to begin? Where do I need to stay focused? What do I need to complete? And when do I need to rest?

Now, that’s the first thing: the profile of an unproductive person. Here’s the second, and it’s the motive of a hard-working person. And here I want to look at Proverbs Chapter 24 and verse 30, where we read: "I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense, and behold, it was overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down."

Now, picture a wise man, and he’s out on a beautiful afternoon taking a walk in the countryside. And the path that he’s walking on takes him by the edge of little properties, one little farm after another. He looks over the land, and he sees at the end of the land a little house where the family that works that land is. And then he moves on past the next farm. It’s a beautiful, beautiful walk. And as he goes along this path, he sees a field of ripening corn. And as he looks across the field to the little house at the end where the family who are working this field live, he thinks, "Oh, there’s going to be a great harvest for this family. They’re going to be richly, wonderfully blessed this year."

And then as he continues on the path, he walks past a vineyard. And he sees these great clusters of grapes hanging from the branches. Looks down at the house at the end of that property and says, "Oh, there’s going to be a great harvest for this family this year. They’re going to be so richly blessed." Keeps walking along this little path, and then he sees this land and it’s an orchard—I had to get that bit in—it’s an orchard. And he thinks, "Oh, how blessed are the family that live here and are deeply rooted in this soil."

And then he comes to another property that looks very, very different. The field is overgrown with thorns. The ground is covered with nettles, and the stone wall around the field is broken down. God has given to the person who lives here a field, but this man has not used what he was given. And the tragedy of the neglected field is not just that the sluggard has failed to provide for himself. It is that this man, unlike all his neighbors, is unable to contribute to the needs of others.

Look at Chapter 21 and verse 25 that draws this out: "The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor. All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back." So you see the contrast that’s being made here is a contrast between the sluggard and the righteous. And here’s the difference: the righteous has a good harvest, and so he has enough for himself and for his family, and he has enough for others as well. And so he’s able to give, and he does not hold back. But the sluggard, who does not plow, he has nothing to give.

So think about this. God gave the sluggard a field. God gave him something that would produce. It would produce all that he needed for himself and a whole lot more besides, more that he could give to others. But here’s the problem: the sluggard did not use what God had given to him, did not use his God-given gift. And because he did not use that which God gave to him, the field became overgrown and the wall was broken down. Now, right here in Proverbs, and particularly in the contrast between the sluggard and the righteous, there is the seed of a principle that is drawn out and made quite clear and explicit in the New Testament, and it’s this: that love is the great motivation for all of our work.

Steve Hiller: Pastor Colin Smith with a message called "Work," really looking at the profile of an unproductive person today, just beginning to get into the motivation of a hard-working person, and we’re going to get back to that next time.

If you ever miss a broadcast in our series, come and listen online at openthebible.org. *Open the Bible* is a listener-supported program. It’s your generosity that allows us to bring you Pastor Colin’s teaching each day. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of Pastor Colin’s brand new 30-day devotional book. It’s called *Grow in Hope*. Colin, who is this book for?

Colin Smith: Well, this is for everybody who wants to have hope, and I think that’s absolutely every person. We all need hope. And if you would like to have hope drip-fed into your life for 30 days, then *Grow in Hope* is a devotional that will do just that. It’s full of the promises of God. It shows that hope comes from God. It comes to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, and it comes to us by his marvelous grace. So, 30 days of hope, I think that’s something that everyone can use, and I hope it’s going to be a blessing to everyone who reads it.

Steve Hiller: Well, we’d love to send you a copy of this as our way of saying thanks for your financial support. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That’s 1-877-673-6365. Or again, the website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I’m Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you’ll join us next time.

Colin Smith: This is Pastor Colin, and I love the story of the thief on the cross because it’s the best story we have to help people understand grace. Many people have the idea that if a person was to get into heaven, they’d get there by living a good enough life. Well, the thief on the cross hadn’t lived a good life, and he wasn’t in a position to start living a good life either. But Jesus said to him, "Today you will be with me in paradise." If the thief could get into heaven, so can everyone you know and will ever meet.

*Heaven, How I Got Here* is a compelling 60-minute film in which Stephen Baldwin portrays the thief on the cross in a one-person play. We’ve seen God use this film to help many to trust in Jesus as the thief did. So, who is there in your life who needs to understand grace? For more information or to watch this film for free, visit openthebible.org/heaven. That’s openthebible.org/heaven.