Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey, podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast.

To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes.

Now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day. This Bible teaching program on today's edition.

Speaker 3

Of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Look, there is no guarantee of wealth from becoming a Christian. God hasn't promised you wealth.

But what he has promised is people who follow God's principles about productivity, about their finances. People who follow God's principles are generally going to be more prosperous than those who ignore God's principles.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. The words productive and lazy are more than just adjectives. They represent basic attitude choices toward the time, money, gifts, and opportunities that God has given to us.

Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares both the immediate and the eternal benefits of choosing productivity over laziness.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Speaker 3

Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. Before we jump into today's teaching, I want to share something that's been weighing heavily on my heart and why the window of opportunity we have right now is so critical. We're standing at a cultural crossroads I've never experienced before in my ministry. On one hand, our society is pushing back against biblical values with increasing intensity. Yet on the other hand, I'm witnessing God work in stunning ways. There's a spiritual hunger out there. People are searching, and I'm convinced we're in a race against time.

This conviction grew even stronger after reading David Green's new book, *The Legacy Life*. You know, David is the founder of Hobby Lobby, but this isn't a book about entrepreneurship or financial success. It's about grasping a profound truth. You and I have been written into God's redemptive plan, and our role extends far beyond our years on this planet.

So here's my challenge to you. When you join as a pathway partner today, through a recurring monthly gift, you're doing far more than backing a broadcast ministry. You're launching something that will reverberate through eternity. You become the conduit God uses to transform a life in your community, across this nation, or halfway around the globe. And to thank you for partnering with us, I'll send you *The Legacy Life*.

Okay, let's turn our attention to the study of God's word. I titled today's message "Choosing Productivity Over Laziness."

Speaker 2

In my desk drawer at home, I have an envelope that is filled with gift cards to various restaurants that people have been kind to give us for birthdays, anniversaries, or other occasions. The other night, I decided to retrieve one of those gift cards when we were going out to eat. When the waiter came to present the bill, I was so proud to be able to flip out that piece of plastic instead of having to charge it or give them cash. So I proudly gave this gift card. The waiter took it, but a few moments later, he came back and whispered into my ear. He said, "I'm sorry, but this card has expired."

I was so mad at myself. I had surrendered the opportunity to exchange a worthless piece of plastic for a nice meal, and I had nobody to blame but myself. It was my forgetfulness, my slothfulness, my, yes, laziness that caused me to pass up that opportunity to exchange something of little value for something of great value. I thought about that later. In a lot of ways, our life is like a gift card from God. We can choose to spend it on things infinitely more valuable than a meal at a restaurant. We can choose to spend our life on trivial pursuits, or we can allow our lives to expire without really exchanging it for anything.

In our series, "Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life," we're saying we don't get to choose our circumstances. We don't get to change our circumstances, but we can choose our response, our attitudes to the circumstances of life. One circumstance that we all in this room share together is this: God has given each one of us a limited amount of time, talents, resources, and opportunities. But we choose how we spend those gifts from God. One choice of an attitude is an attitude of productivity, an attitude that maximizes, that chooses to maximize God's gifts to us. Or we can choose the attitude of laziness. Laziness, which the Bible calls slothfulness, is an attitude of indifference toward the time, the talent, the resources, and the opportunities that God gives us.

Today, we're going to talk about why the Bible says we should choose the attitude of productivity over the attitude of laziness. For the few minutes we have this morning, I want us to do three things. First of all, we're going to look at the relationship in the Bible between productivity and prosperity. Secondly, we're going to define laziness or slothfulness and look at four characteristics of it. Finally, we're going to talk about five practical ways to develop an attitude of productivity in your life. Failing to be productive, choosing laziness over productivity, not only profoundly affects the kind of life you experience now, but it affects your eternity as well.

Now, first of all, let's look at the relationship between productivity and prosperity. I want you to listen to this next few minutes especially carefully because I don't want to get any emails from people who have misunderstood what I'm saying. There is a strain of teaching in Christianity today, really heresy, called the prosperity gospel. The prosperity gospel basically says it's God's will for every Christian to be rich and for every Christian to be physically well. If you're not experiencing health and wealth, it's because something is wrong with you; you're sinning, you're not a Christian, or you haven't given enough money. That's why you're not prosperous. That is not what the Bible teaches.

Yet, you hear it all the time. You hear it on television. One popular televangelist has what he calls the "seven steps of faith." Just listening to four of them will help you get the general idea. He was on television, and I saw him not long ago saying, "Step number one, let God know what you need from Him: new car, new job, finances, house, finances, salvation. Let God know what you need. Step number two, give God your best gift. Step number three, pray the prayer of agreement with me." I wrote this down. He said, "Take the prayer sheet I've enclosed and lay your hand on top of my photograph and pray. Oh, God, I pray in agreement right now with my brother Bob. By faith, we declare a miracle in existence in the name of Jesus. Father, I'm giving my best gift to you today. Therefore, we ask that you rebuke the devil from the life of me according to Malachi 3."

Speaker 3

Amen.

Speaker 2

Step number four, mail your prayer request and your faith gift back to me today. Now, that's the prosperity gospel. The problem with heresy like that is there's just enough truth mixed in with a lot of error to make it sound plausible. As you look at the Bible, there does seem to be a relationship between obedience to God and prosperity. In fact, John said in 3 John, "My desire is that you prosper in all things, in all areas of life."

Let me show you what I'm talking about regarding that relationship between obedience to God and prosperity. Look at Proverbs 3:9-10: "Honor the Lord from your wealth, and from the first of all of your produce, so that your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine." Or consider Proverbs 10:4-5: "Poor is he who works with a negligent hand, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a son who acts wisely, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who acts shamefully." Proverbs 10:22 states, "It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, and he adds no sorrow to it." Additionally, Proverbs 13:21 says, "Adversity pursues sinners, but the righteous will be rewarded with prosperity." Proverbs 15:6 notes, "Such wealth is in the house of the righteous, but trouble is in the income of the wicked."

How are we to understand those verses? Some people will say, "Well, those are in the Old Testament. That was God's promise to Israel. But we're not Israel; therefore, none of those promises apply to us today. It's completely irrelevant." It is true that some of the promises in the Bible are specific to Israel only, and we're foolish to try to apply them to ourselves. But are we going to say that about all the promises in the Old Testament? Are we saying none of them is applicable to us today?

When you look through Proverbs, it's clear that Proverbs isn't just written to the Israelites. It's a universal principle, not just a promise, applicable to all people, Christians and non-Christians alike. The other extreme is that some people say, "Well, you don't have to explain these away; just take them at face value. If you do what God says, you're going to be wealthy." But there's a problem with that too, especially when you consider both the New Testament and the experience of Christians around the world.

For example, in Hebrews 11:37, it talks about those first-century Christians: "They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, ill-afflicted, ill-treated." That hardly sounds like the prosperity gospel, does it? And that's been the way it's been throughout history for most Christians around the world. In 1 Corinthians 1:26, Paul said, "Consider your calling, brethren. There are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble."

You know, why is it that the majority of celebrities, the majority of wealthy people, and the majority of academics around the world don't embrace Christianity? It's because those things, their accomplishments, have become stumbling blocks to them. That's why Paul said, "Look around you; there are not a lot of rich people here in church. There's not a lot of people with PhDs." There's nothing wrong with that; everything is right with that. But the fact is, it's usually humble people, people of lower means, not great income, who come to faith in Christ.

So how are we to understand these verses about prosperity, especially in the book of Proverbs? Look, there is no guarantee of wealth from becoming a Christian. God hasn't promised you wealth, but what he has promised is this: people who follow God's principles about work, productivity, and their finances are generally going to be more prosperous than those who ignore God's principles. And that's what we're going to talk about today.

Now, the best way to understand productivity, which is the attitude of maximizing your God-given gifts, is to look at its opposite: slothfulness, laziness. The book of Proverbs has a wealth, pardon the pun, of information about slothfulness and laziness. Turn over to Proverbs 24:30-34. The slothful person, the lazy person in the book of Proverbs, is often referred to as the sluggard or the fool. There are some people who are just plain foolish, and that's the lazy person.

Notice what the writer says beginning in verse 30: "I passed by the field of the sluggard, the lazy person, and by the vineyard of the man lacking sense. And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles; its surface was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked and I received instruction."

Here's the instruction he received: "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Then your poverty will come as a robber, and your want, that is your need, like an armed man." As the writer of Proverbs was taking his morning walk or jog through his neighborhood, he noticed that one of his neighbor's houses had fallen into disrepair. At first, he probably grew angry, thinking, "Man, this eyesore is hurting my property values. I can't sell my house with a house like this next door."

But he turned his irritation into a desire for instruction. He thought to himself again, "This house didn't get the way it is by itself. There is a certain attitude in the owner of this house that produced this kind of dilapidated eyesore." That's why he says in verse 32, "I decided to learn what I could. I applied my heart to what I observed, and I learned a lesson from what I saw."

You know, when you read through Proverbs, you can learn just as much from an ungodly person as you can from a godly person. You can learn a lot of good things from godly people about what to do. Look at an ungodly person and what happens to him, and you can learn what not to do. That's why you ought to observe and teach your children to observe not only the end of the godly but the end of the ungodly. When you see something in the news about the consequences of an ungodly life, you ought to point that out to your children.

The writer of Proverbs says, "I decided to learn what negative lesson I could learn." Here's the lesson: it's actually one that he repeated earlier in Proverbs 6:10-11: "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a thief." Now, he's not saying there's anything wrong with resting or sleeping. But this was the stock answer of the sluggard. Whenever he faced something that required effort, he said, "Oh, no, no. I've got to get my rest. I've got to get my sleep."

How do you recognize a sluggard and recognize maybe the characteristics in you that make you a sluggard? Proverbs gives us four definite characteristics of a sluggard.

Number one, the sluggard refuses to begin. The sluggard's motto is, "Never do today what you can postpone till tomorrow." Proverbs 26:14 says, "Like the door turns on its hinges, so does the sluggard on his bed." He turns back and forth and back and forth; he can never get himself out of bed. That's what the sluggard does. He always finds a reason not to begin something.

Secondly, the sluggard does not complete his work. Proverbs 12:27 says, "A slothful man does not even roast his prey, but the precious possession of a man is diligence." This guy is lazy; he goes to the effort of killing an animal for his meal that night, but he's too lazy to cook the animal to prepare his meal. And in the event that he does cook the meal, look at this: Proverbs 19:24 states, "The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth." That's lazy.

In fact, somebody has said that really, it's just five minutes more that separates mediocrity from excellence. For example, it just takes five minutes more of reading toward your goal, just five minutes more of working out a problem with your mate, just five minutes more helping a son or daughter with the difficulty they're experiencing at school, or just five minutes more of pleading with God for something you desperately want him to do in your life. Five minutes more, many times, separates mediocrity from excellence. The sluggard doesn't understand that.

The third characteristic of the sluggard is that he ignores opportunities. The problem with the sluggard in Proverbs 24 is not that he was sleeping; it's that he was sleeping at the wrong time. He was sleeping when he should have been preparing his vineyard for the harvest, preparing the ground and planting seeds so that when the harvest time came, there was something to harvest. But the sluggard doesn't do that.

The sluggard views opportunities as a train, thinking, "Oh, there'll be another one in five minutes from now. If I miss this train, there'll be another one." If he misses this opportunity, he believes there will be another opportunity. That's what the sluggard does; he says, "Ah, well, I've got plenty of time to plant seeds and till the land. If I miss the planting time this year, there's always next year."

But a wise person, a productive person, understands how rare opportunities are. How many times have you heard somebody say, "Oh, if only I had invested in the XYZ company stock 20 years ago, I would have been a wealthy person today?" Well, there's a reason that person didn't invest in the XYZ company 20 years ago. He was so undisciplined in his finances that he spent everything he had and then some. He never had the resources to take advantage of that opportunity.

Or someone might say, "You know, I actually thought of the iPhone 30 years ago." Well, that's great, but why didn't you do something about it? Because it would have required too much effort, too much hard work. You see, a sluggard thinks that opportunities will always be there.

I want to take a minute here and brag on our church staff for just a moment. We had a very unique opportunity presented to us. The Trinity Broadcasting Network, the largest Christian network in the world that reaches 98% of the globe in 195 countries, came to us and said, "Because of some circumstances, we have a prime opportunity for you to begin airing five days a week, Monday through Friday at 7 a.m. in the morning, to have a prime slot on Sunday morning to air on the Hillsong network seven days a week at 7:30. But we need your answer in 24 hours because we've got people lined up who want to take this spot."

Well, Ben and I talked. We recognized that it was a great opportunity. Fortunately, because of our people's generosity, we had at least enough money to get started—not to finish, but to get started in this great ministry opportunity. But we knew it was going to be a tremendous load on our staff. So we went to Nate Curtis and our communications staff and presented this opportunity to them. It would mean, instead of producing one TV program a week, producing seven programs a week in addition to six radio programs.

But you know what? Every one of our staff members, without a doubt, every one of them said, "We've got to seize this opportunity. It doesn't matter if it's more work; we've got to do this. This is what our church is all about, transforming the world with God's word, one life at a time." So we took that opportunity, and God has blessed us with thousands of responses just in the last couple of weeks we've been on the air, with people being blessed by this ministry.

What I'm saying to you is that opportunities don't come often. A wise person, a productive person, is one who will take advantage of them. A fourth characteristic of the sluggard is that the sluggard craves riches. Now, he doesn't like work, but he likes the rewards of work. He short-circuits the work process by looking for a get-rich-quick scheme. Lazy people are always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme.

By the way, Proverbs has something to say about that. Proverbs 28:20 states, "He who makes haste to be rich will not go unpunished." Do you know people like this? They're always looking for the big deal. They're always talking about their next big deal. The key word is they talk about it, but they never do anything. Slothfulness leads to a life of dissatisfaction and poverty in this life and the loss of rewards in the next life.

God has given each one of us a limited amount of time, talents, resources, and opportunities. But we choose how we spend those gifts from God.

Speaker 3

In the event you missed any portion of our current series, David is going to explain how you can receive the audio and video recordings. This study is called "Choose Your Change, Your Life." David will also describe a book and Bible study guide that accompanies this series and how you can receive one.

Plus, I want to send you another book. It's the one by David Greene, founder of Hobby Lobby, that I mentioned earlier. It's called "The Legacy Life." David shatters the myth that legacy building is a retirement project. Instead, he reveals that this legacy begins today, the instant you invest what God has entrusted to you for kingdom advancement.

Here's all I'm asking. I want you to become one of our Pathway Partners today. As a Pathway Partner, you commit to give a monthly automated gift—whatever amount God lays on your heart. Every single month, your gift creates a ripple effect that reaches people you'll never meet in ways you can't even imagine. One day, we'll stand in eternity and embrace people who found Christ because we stepped out in faith. Become a Pathway Partner right now.

One more thing: Have you made your summer vacation plans yet? I'm counting down the days to the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th to 20th. Alaska in June is absolutely breathtaking. We'll see glaciers, eagles, and coastal villages that look like paintings. But what makes this trip truly special is sharing it with fellow Christians. If you're looking for a spiritually refreshing getaway, head to ptv.org right now to reserve your spot for this unforgettable journey.

Here's David to tell you more.

Speaker 1

You're invited to request a copy of the Legacy Life when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victoria or when you become a Pathway Partner. Plus, we'll send you the book *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life* by Dr. Robert Jeffress. Request these resources by calling 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. When you give a gift of $100 or more, we'll also send you our current teaching series on audio and video disc. You'll get that along with the group or individual study guide. Again, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. You could also write to us at P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. That's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins, wishing you a great weekend. Then join us next time for part two of the message *Choosing Productivity Over Laziness*, right here on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes.

We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for? Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Koningsdam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways. It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visit iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We're also bringing along our own Christian entertainment. You'll love it. Seats are filling up, so book your spot today at ptv.org.