All right.
Hey, good morning across all of our campuses, man. We're excited to have you today as we continue in our series in the book of Proverbs. If you guys have a copy of scripture, you can take it and turn with me to Proverbs chapter six. All right. That's where we're going to be today. But as you guys are turning to Proverbs six, I am so excited to let you guys in on something that happened just this week.
All right. So at Mercy Hill, you guys know we are really into kind of helping other churches. We really believe that to whom much is given, much is required. And so we have this whole ministry called Breaking Barriers. And this ministry is about helping other churches be equipped for leadership, help. We open our playbook for everything. I mean, anything that we can give away, we want to give away. This week, get this, this week, over 150 leaders from seven different states and 50 churches were right here at Mercy Hill for a two-day conference being equipped and leadership and ways of growing and going their churches. And so, man, I want you guys to take joy in something like that when we get a chance to do it, because if it was not for the generosity of this church, if it was not for your service and us all being a team together, we would not be seeing the things happen here that we're seeing.
And we wouldn't be able to give these things away in the way that we are. And so, man, I just want you guys to know, like what's happening here is reverberating, and it's not just being contained here. Let me tell you guys one story. I've been wanting to tell you this story all week, okay, from the conference. Some of you are going to not understand this much because Mercy Hill's your first church you've ever really been involved in, which is awesome. Okay, that's great.
We're glad you're here. But other people have come from a background where there's, we call it more traditional or whatever, but sometimes it's, you know, there's a lot of committees and deacon boards and that kind of stuff, all right. And this church in eastern North Carolina, there was a good church, growing church, but had a lot of that traditional mindset. They were growing, they were smaller church, they were growing, and they started bumping the numbers of like whatever it was, 150 or something like that, and they were getting maxed out in their space. Well, what the pastor did was he wanted to go to two services, like we would do here, right? And so he says to the deacon board, I want to go to two services, and they told him no, actually.
I mean, they just kind of said, hey, you know, they didn't really understand the model of that, and they didn't want to, you know, they didn't want to move in that direction. They were just going to kind of let the church be capped out. Somehow, someway, he got involved in this conference. He got involved in our podcast that we do every week for church leaders across the nation, and he found one of the podcasts that was on why to go to two services. He sent that to their deacon board.
The deacon board listened to all of the, you know, all the deacons listened to it, came back to him and said, man, we were wrong. We need to do that, and they launched two services. Now they're running 250 out in eastern North Carolina, all right, and we, you know, we love that.
We love stories like that. Every one of those numbers has a face. They're all a person that matters to God, right, and so we're excited for what God is doing. Hey, I want to cast a vision for you. Can you imagine what, you know, we had 150 people in 50 churches. What does it look like to have 1,500 people in 500 churches that are being involved in something like this, and that's going to happen with our continued generosity and our continued service here, so just take heart in that, and if you're on the sideline, jump on the front line, all right.
Let's dive in. We're going to be in Proverbs chapter 6 today, excited for this message. We bounce around scripture, you know, through different series. We try to cover the council of the whole council, the word of God, so we'll do, you know, apocalypse. We'll do gospel.
We'll do poetry. This is called wisdom literature, what Proverbs is, and wisdom literature is very simple. It's God saying, hey, this is not only the world that I created, but here's the playbook for it. If you want to thrive and flourish in my world that I created, this is some good principles to live by, all right, and this is, and it's not, man, it's not a health and wealth thing. It's not a prosperity gospel thing. I'm not saying everything in your life is always going to be great, but what we are saying is there's general guidelines to how God wants us to live in his world.
His goal for us is flourishing and thriving, and so he gave us a playbook for that. You know, when I moved to North Carolina, it shocked me of how much of a basketball state this is, okay. I was from Florida. I was in South Carolina before, and it's all football in those states, okay, so I get to North Carolina, and people start talking about basketball season before football season is over, which is a sin, okay. That's a sin, and people love basketball in North Carolina, and I like to watch basketball. I like to watch high levels of basketball too, NBA or Division I. This is what is always so shocking to me about the end of a basketball game at the highest level.
You're talking about, you know, Sweet 16, D1 or NBA playoffs, and it's always the same thing. Right at the end of the game, you got one more shot. What does the coach do? He grabs a little whiteboard or chalkboard, and they start drawing the play up right there, and I'm like, are we playing backyard football or what's going on?
But they're looking at the defense, and they're thinking about the flow of the game, and what do they say? Hey, you're going to go here. You go baseline. You set the pick.
We're getting the shot here. If that's not there, do this, and they draw the play right there. Good teams take that play and follow it. Other teams decide, I'm going to do street ball, and you know what?
They lose at those high levels. The plan that God has given us is a good plan if we would execute it. It's almost like the coach has said, hey man, you go baseline. You set the pick here. You do this, and that's going to give us a great outcome, a good opportunity for a good outcome here, and my question is, are we willing to follow his plans for us? His plans are all-encompassing. They touch every area of our life. Today, we're going to talk about work. We're going to talk about the value of work.
We're going to talk about the sluggard, a comedic and tragic character in the book of Proverbs. Here's the big idea this weekend. God's plan is for his people to work hard with joy. Christians should stand out in this area of our life because, listen, it's very important. We do not have an adversarial attitude when it comes to work. In fact, we see it as something good that God created.
We are in his we are in his image. He is a worker. We are workers. There is not just instrumental value in work, meaning I go to work so I can get money.
That happens. There is an intrinsic value that we understand. This is God's creation, and it is functioning through our work, which makes it very, very valuable, all right? I'm not just going to punch a time clock.
I'm honoring the Lord with what I choose to do with my time, talent, and treasure and what I end up doing with my working life. Do you know that most Americans, average American, is going to work a hundred thousand hours in their life? Stay-at-home moms do that every single week, okay? Pretty much, all right? But you understand, 100,000 hours? If I'm going to give that type of time in my life to something, it'd be good to have a right attitude around it, wouldn't it? It'd be good to have a good attitude around it. A lot of us end up with a slothful or sluggard type attitude around work, and it's really because it may not even be because we're lazy.
It's because what happens is we don't value work rightly and understand God's plans for it in our life. So we're going to just kind of hit on all that stuff, all right? Let's dive in. Proverbs chapter six.
Here's what it says. Go to the ant, O sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. Think about that. No one has to tell the ant what to do. The ant goes and works hard. Why? Because that's what an ant does. There's some kind of intrinsic DNA thing. This is whose image, you know, when God has created the ant, he's created it to be a worker.
You ain't got to tell it to work. This is who they are. Now, he says in verse nine, there's a question. How long will you lie there, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep? Now, I think verse 10 is actually an answer, okay? So it's like the sluggard is saying back, all right? Just a little while longer, right?
A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Now, here's the warning, and this passage is a giant flashing siren's warning for the people of God. You ready? And poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed man. Now, the sluggard, all right, the sluggard is a comedic and tragic character in the book of Proverbs. All right, he pops up.
We talked about the forbidden woman, the strange woman last week. Another character in the book of Proverbs is the sluggard. He pops up, and in this passage, he don't want to get out of the bed. The Proverb says like a door that has hinges, you know, like the door turns on the hinge. That's how the sluggard is in their bed.
They're anchored to the bed, and they just want to go back and forth and back and forth, and they don't want to get up. The sluggard is a lazy and slow person. That's what the sluggard is.
It's everything different than the ant, okay? I think about sluggard. What's the best way to think about a sluggard? A slug, okay? Now, this person may not be slimy and wet, but they are slow, and that's what, you know, think about a slug.
Could you imagine, is there any op- what animal would be the most opposite animal you can imagine of a slug? An ant. What does an ant do? It never stops, man. The ant is a busy little bee.
It's moving hard. It's, you know, ants are crazy. Ants don't sleep very much.
They take little naps all day, so they can just wake up and keep moving and keep working. Ants are determined. Ants have a purpose.
Word for the day. Ants are pugnacious, okay? You get in front of them, and they're going to bite you to get you out of the way so that they can keep going on their mission. You don't want to know the opposite of a sluggard. A sluggard is slow in their mind.
It comes out in their hands. The opposite of that is being diligent in your mind and having that diligent come- diligence come out in your hands, and that's what an ant is. The ant is diligent, and that's why it's so much different than the sluggard. The ant's always moving. The ant is strong, and ant can lift 50 times its body weight and carry it around.
That'd be like us walking out there grabbing a car and just carrying it around. They can do that. Man, they're always moving. They have a mission. Their colonies kind of function almost like its own little organism, really, with the way that they're moving, the way that they're talking.
You see this in other things in nature like a beehive and all that as well, but the point is they're moving. They have a mission. They are diligent. It's the opposite of a slug in every possible way that you can imagine, and I think what the Bible wants us to see today is what comes out in our hands is connected to our heart. The sluggish heart produces sluggish hands.
The diligent heart produces a diligent hand. Now, look at the question verse 9. How long will you lay there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? And I think his answer is this. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. You know, I get the thing in my mind sometimes. I don't know if you guys have ever had this experience, but man, you're tired.
I don't know. It's a Sunday afternoon. You're late, and then your kids are younger. They want you to play so bad.
They want you to go do something, and what does dad keep telling them? Yeah, I'm just resting my eyes. I'm coming. Just a minute.
Just a minute. I'm coming. I'm coming. I'm coming.
I'm coming. It's a little bit like that. There's work to be done, and they come to the sluggard who, as the book of Proverbs tells us in Proverbs 26 14, is hinged to his bed.
All right. It's like a door on hinges going back and forth, back and forth. He's anchored to the bed.
They ask him, hey, when are you going to arise and get up and go to work, and what does he say? Just a little while longer. I'm just going to be here for a little while.
I'm going to just kind of cut a little bit, a little folding of the hands a little while. Let me tell you about the sluggard. The sluggard is anchored to his bed. The sluggard is one who loves to make excuses, although they are many times very preposterous. Our excuses can be kind of preposterous as well. Proverbs 22 13 says, oh, I can't go work. Why? Well, there's a lion outside. You know, there's a lion out there, and so I can't go out there. He can't ever start anything because he can't get out of the bed, but when he does start something, he can never finish it. Proverbs 12 27 tells us that he'll go out and hunt the game, pow, but he doesn't go to get it. He can't bring it home and roast it. He just wants to do the first part. He can't actually finish it.
Well, the Bible tells us in Proverbs 19 24, the guy is so lazy that he starts to eat the meal, but before he can get the food to his mouth, he's already run out of energy, and he can't even get finished with what he's trying to eat. Sure, he's got big plans. He wants to harvest. Proverbs 24 tells us he's looking for the harvest, but in the fall, when you should have planted, he refused to plow. He wants what's good.
He just doesn't want to put in the work, and this is the sluggard. All right, can I give you two things practical here? All right, and one of them is going to be a little bit of an aside, but I think it's a good thing for us today.
The first one is this. I'm going to get into this. Many of us that I'm looking at right now at our campuses as well, and I'm susceptible to this as well, we think finally there is a sermon that is not about me. This is what we think, right? Well, that's what we think. We think like, man, I mean, you know, we think, hey, I may be everything in the world, but the one thing I'm not is lazy.
You know, the one thing I'm not is a sluggard, and I would tell you, we're going to talk more about this, but just to make sure our hearts are not, you know, getting too disconnected from this message. Yes, this is about our working life in a lot of ways, but there are many people who are as ant-like and excitable as they can be in the workplace, only to be a sluggard at home, right? Like we, I mean, how fast, you know, we're hinged to the bed. We're quick to get out of the bed to go to work, but some of us, are we that quick to get up and get on mission with the church and serve, or to get up and make sure we're pouring into our families spiritually and that our kids are being discipled? Are we jumping out of the bed 5 a.m. because, man, it's time for us to get up and give to something for the mission? Are we jumping at the opportunity to steward our bodies? You know, my point is this, there's a lot of ways, I mean, me and Anna have been talking about this sermon all week, and there's a lot of ways that it's like, well, maybe our working life is not even the problem, but there are other places where God's kind of metaphorically saying, you need to get out of the bed and get on mission here with this area or that area of your life.
So don't disconnect it. We're going to try to put all that together as we keep working through this, okay? The second thing, and this is an aside, I know that, but I just think it's needed, and I just want to make sure we say it. Guys, last week, to the men in the room, and I know these characters are not always male, female, they're presented that way, but I mean, you can see tendencies in different genders and all that, I know that, okay? But last week, what did we see? The seductive woman, the strange woman, the forbidden woman.
What did we say? Surface charm, but no character. Saint to Proverbs 31 woman. And in fact, the Bible tells us there could be, you know, the seductive nature is surface deep. She's like a ring, gold ring in a pig's snout.
That's an image, right? But we understand it. There's the looks, but there's not the character. And what did the Bible say? Young men stay away from her. Well, this is a bit of an aside, I know, but I want to tell the ladies today, when you see signs of the sluggard, stay away, stay away from his door. And here's what happens, man, you see the signs of a sluggard from even when they are young. These are things that young men have to be discipled out of.
It is foolishness that is bound in the heart of a child. There is no kid on planet earth that just wakes up one day wanting to work hard. All right? This is something that they need to be discipled in, but you can see the tendencies in a sluggard. And I would tell you, if they're not working on that stuff in their life, this is somebody you want to stay away from because their whole life is going to be this way. All right. Yeah.
I mean, even when they're in school, their grades are terrible because they miss class all the time because they can't get out of bed. He's always quitting things. He quits sports teams. He quits jobs. He's always got a new boss. He's always got this or that, man, the excuses flow from this brother.
Okay. This is somebody who never has the right boss. They never had the right team.
They never had the money that everybody else had. And it's excuse after excuse after excuse. They never start anything, man. They talk about starting stuff, but when it comes right down to it, they never start anything. It's always another excuse, blah, blah, blah.
This is the sluggard. Okay. They smell bad. All right. Let's just be honest. Okay.
The S the sluggard smells their cars, the disaster. All right. They don't, they, they don't want to, they don't clean their room. All right. This is somebody who doesn't take care of themselves.
They endlessly live at home, even though they're 40 years old. This is the Matthew McConaughey movie. Okay.
Failure to launch. All right. It's it's not because there is a, uh, you know, Hey, Hey, I'm living at home to get out of debt for a season. Nope. Fine. Okay.
This is not that this is I'm 40 and I have a job, but I really like mom's cooking and laundry service. Okay. And so I just stay at home and I'm telling you for the guys in the room, the young men in the room, everything I've said is character issues that we want to stay away from. Right.
Maybe the opposite of that. Start stuff, finish stuff. Don't make excuses, man.
Run to get out of the bed in the morning. Steward your body. All these things are character things we want to see from our young men. All right.
So ladies, I would say when you're seeing this in a young man, stay far from their door. All right. Now I said this a minute ago, but I just want to say it again. Um, don't let this get too disconnected from our heart because what we're going to say is, well, that's not me. I'm very, I'm a very hard worker. Well, let's keep working here. Okay.
What does the sluggard say? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest and poverty will come upon you like a robber, like an armed man, like a vagabond, like a highwayman and ambush. Okay.
And, uh, and, and this, this is, let's just be honest. This is the part that I think our culture is not going to like that. There is absolutely a connection between our prosperity, our provision and our individual attitudes toward work. Why does a culture not like this? Because when we see people that are in poverty, what the culture always wants to say is it is a systemic problem rather than, Hey, there are individual choices that need to be made in accordance with wisdom in accordance with God's word. And, and we don't like that, but here's the great thing about the Bible. The Bible don't care if you like it or not.
If the Bible is like, Hey, this is what is true. Generally speaking, there is a direct line between our diligence and value of work and how we prosper and are provided for in life. Now Proverbs are not promises. I want to make sure you hear me say this. I understand very clearly not every poor person is lazy and not every lazy person is poor.
Okay. People could be poor. They try, they, they try to business, they work hard, they do, and it just didn't work out and it didn't work out and it's gotten them in a financial situation.
It doesn't mean they're not trying. Certainly I have met people in my life. Maybe you've met people like this that fell backwards into money.
Okay. Maybe it's an inheritance thing or whatever. And so maybe they could even be lazy and have a lot of money. So my point is they're not always an iron clad promise type connection, but generally general wisdom member Proverbs are, are not promises, but they are generally true things in life.
General truth. What we are slothful in will produce poverty in our life. Now that could be with work and we'll talk about that, but it also could be spiritual poverty that comes from spiritual sloth, spiritual laziness, you know, spiritual problems. So it's really both of these things. You know, I think about kids and it's like, man, maybe a kid struggles in school.
And what we want to do is we want to call that something. It's always the teacher's fault. It's always this.
What about this? You know, foolishness is bound to the heart of a child. And part of foolishness is laziness.
There are children that need to be pulled out of that laziness. Hey, we got to keep working here. We got to keep working here.
It's not natural for them. There are people in this world. And I pray if you've landed in this church, that we can help you with this with connections, with helping you to see examples of people who work hard that maybe just have a hard time working. You keep, you keep saying, you're going to start, you say, you're going to start, man.
You you've had 10 different jobs in the last two years. It's like, okay, if that's a problem, then this is a good passage for you to sort of understand the warnings that God is giving you. He's trying to show you there is a direct line between things that we are slothful in and things that we are seeing poverty in, in our life.
All right. So maybe it's work. Are we slothful? Then we end up in some kind of physical poverty, but it could be something else. I think this is really the point. Sluggers shouldn't be surprised when they wind up in poverty, right? A slugger shouldn't be surprised when they wind up in poverty. And maybe it's not a physical thing.
Okay. Maybe somebody wakes up isolated one day and you realize you don't have any relationships. And here's what everybody says, well, the church doesn't reach out. The church doesn't this, the church, remember, it's like, we always move to the systemic idea so that we can get away from individual responsibility.
It's the churches, the churches, the church. Well, let me ask you how much diligence have you done in relationship building over the last two or three years? If you wake up in a situation of isolation, what did you do two or three years ago? And the question then turns into, Hey, you didn't build what needed to be built. What's the next best time today? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. You know what the next best time to plant it is today. Okay.
And let's start to build. Maybe it's a discipleship of your kids. Maybe it's something in that regard. If there's spiritual poverty, maybe there may be the marriage relationship is feeling impoverished.
Well, what is being put in? Is there a slothful I'm turning on the hinges like a door I'm anchored to the bed, or is God saying, get up and get moving. You know, the Bible does a good job of warning us.
And this is what the Bible is doing in Proverbs six, man, don't be a slugger in different areas of your life and then expect that what you're not going to have is poverty one day in that area of your life. It's a good warning. I've shared this story before, but I feel like it's just kind of, it's just kind of one that helps me.
It helps it kind of pop. You know, the Bible is a good father. The Bible is written by a good father gives good warnings to his kids. And I think about this story. Um, when I was a kid, I was probably third or fourth grade. I don't, I don't remember. Um, man, I went out to feed our rabbits one day and we had these two rabbits out in the dog run in our, in the back of our house and, uh, in the backyard and this, uh, these rabbits, thunder and lightning.
Okay. And I go out there and, uh, and I, and I jump up on the, I jump up on the dog kennel to jump in. I got all the rabbit food and all that. And I looked down and poor thunder is thrashing about because he has just been bitten by a five foot long Eastern diamond back rattlesnake. And this snake is directly under my feet. I mean, I'm like, I'm up on the thing about to jump right on his back. Praise God. I didn't, I did not jump on his back and I jumped down.
I go running in the house. My dad comes home and he's, you know, and he's, he's kind of like, like a daisical about it because every snake you ever see is a rattlesnake right in Florida. And so he's like, yeah, yeah. Well, this one actually was huge rattlesnake. He was out there, uh, preparing to eat poor thunder.
Okay. So he was getting, he was, he was preparing his meal. So we come out there and the snake is still out there. And so my dad, and this is the part of the story.
My dad takes me and like I said, I'm like nine or 10 years old or something. And I mean, for me to that second row right here, he's like, Hey, listen, you run around these woods all the time. And there's snakes all about, he's like, I want to make sure you understand this sound because this sound means stay away. And I'm looking at him and he starts just taking pine cones and just pegging this snake. And this snake, I mean, he's just like right there. And the snake is at this point, all curled up like a national geographic episode. All right. And, and I mean, rattlesnake, rattlesnake will spit. I mean, they're mean, they look like a demonic figure. And, and my dad has given me this warning and he thinks he's doing really good parenting.
I would call it child abuse. Okay. I'm like, man, I feel like I see this snake in my dreams, you know, for the next couple of years. Um, and, but he, he kept saying like, you hear that sound. And I don't know if you've ever heard a rattlesnake in the wild. If you've ever heard it, you will never forget the sound. Okay.
Uh, it's an amazing thing in God's creation. And then, you know, he, all right, you got the warning. Yeah, I got the warning dad.
Okay. And then bam shot the snake and all that, um, cut the rattle off and still got the rattle. So, um, uh, it's kind of crazy, but I think about that story and I just think like, what my dad is trying to do is say, Hey, that sound is put in creation for a reason.
And the reason is to tell you stop and turn around. Don't come anywhere near that sound. And you know what Proverbs six is, it's like a giant rattle. It's saying, Hey, do not go near the slugger. Do not go near these tendencies in your heart.
Stay away from sloth. Identify the areas in your life where you feel like you have tendencies towards this, man. Let's see them for what they are. Let's repent of them. Let's trust.
God is a good God who doesn't want us to walk this road for our good and for his glory. So here's the application. Okay. Value work, very simple. Very simple value work. If we value our work, like God does, if we understand that God is a God who has put us in his image and God is a worker, don't you understand that God is a God who's got dirt under his fingernails. He works, he created, he put us in his image. All right. So we work. Think about the end. Nobody tells it to do.
You ain't got to have an officer wife. The ant works because that's what God has created it to do. That's how we should be. God is a worker and he has created us to work. And as long as we have a right view of that work and what God is doing with it in the world and intrinsic value, not just an instrumental value, then we will work. Okay. Um, we got to understand that work is a pre-fall blessing, not a post-fall curse. Many people, this is where they miss it. Well, work is hard and I don't like it.
Why? Well, because God made humans work after they said, no, that's like pagan theology. That's a pagan religion. That wouldn't be Christianity. Christianity is God made work when creation was very good. Genesis two tells us this, the Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. All right.
Work was a pre-fall blessing. If you want more theology around work, we have a book in the lobbies today. Okay. So you guys can grab this on your way out. Um, there, I don't know, we sell them at cost.
I don't even know exactly how much they are, but that you can go outside and grab this book. Um, and it's a good book from Tim Keller on just that intrinsic value of work. Y'all we work because God is a worker. I want you to think about your, some of us say, well, yeah, but I just, you know, I'm not, I just do this job or that job.
It's not like I'm a pastor or something like that. Listen, work is not good only because you get money and you can give it away. Although that is good work is not good only because it gives you a chance to be evangelistic in the workplace. Although that is good work is intrinsically good because we function and God shows off in his creation. It functions through our work. Prayers are answered many ways through our work. I want you to think about the police officer. I want you to think about the, the, you know, the nurse. I want you to think about the truck driver. We pray, God, give us our daily bread. Who brings it to you?
Some trucks aren't going up and down the road. It don't happen. We would pray that kids will be well, what happens? We need them to have doctors and nurses. We pray that we would be safe.
We have officers that are on the, on the beat. It's like God is using all of these things for his creation to flourish in good ways. There is intrinsic value in it. And I pray that you'll see that today, but many of us don't want to see it or we don't see it. And I want to try to show you today that we should, because here's the thing.
I think some of us are thinking, man, I'm a million miles away from this. Like I, man, I'm cutting corners. I don't like my boss. I don't want the job that I have.
How can I see this as in value as good and all that. All right, let's talk about that for a minute. You know, God created you to be a worker in his image, but in our sin, we are always running away from that. Now we run from it. And it's not just in the work area of our life. It's in every area of our life.
I mean, have we not been slothful? If you want to say it like that, towards the mission of God and towards our relationship with God, what do you call that? You call it sin and sin spiritually bankrupts us.
I mean, what does this passage tell us? If you are a sluggard, you will be in poverty. Well, if you are a sinner, you will be spiritually bankrupt. You will be destined for a place called hell with no hope.
See, there's two things I want you to see. Why, why should we want to be the diligent worker? Well, number one, God created us to work and the whole of creation in Christian theology is this. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
He wants your deepest joy. And part of that joy is fulfilling your purpose. And part of that fulfilling your purpose is working for his kingdom.
All right. I don't mean working as a preacher or working as a missionary. I mean, seeing your job as a kingdom endeavor, this is intrinsically good. And then I'm working to produce in God's creation. I'm going to do all things to the glory of God. If that wasn't reason enough, then what I want you to do is think about a second reason. And that is that in our sin, we fell away from that relationship with God. We fell from our purpose and we deserve nothing but hell to follow. But here's the deal. God sent Jesus Christ in our place to bring us back into the family so that you and I who are the slugger could actually be named and declared the diligent. And this is what he, this is what he did.
Okay. Jesus is the most diligent person that has ever lived. Luke nine tells us he set his face toward Jerusalem so that he could come and die on the cross for you.
But you know what? When he died on that cross, it wasn't because of the sloth and the spiritual bankruptcy in his life. It was because of our, see on the cross, the diligent died for the sin of the slugger. You and I deserve eternal spiritual poverty, but Jesus for our sake became poor so that we could become rich in him. So if you listen, if you're not a believer, there's two applications.
This is it. If you're not a believer, then you're, you know, there's an opportunity for you today to become a Christian. And when that happens, God takes everything that is true of Jesus and overlays it on your life. All of a sudden you go from a sluggard to the diligent in God's eyes. Just like that.
You think I'm a million miles away. I'm lazy. I cut corners.
You pray the prayer of salvation and you are the diligent and here's how that changes your life. Okay. It is one thing to be afraid. And so you produce some behavior, man. I don't want God to be mad at me. So I'll try to work hard. It's another thing to realize I have been given this identity as a diligent son or daughter of the King. And you better believe I'm going to go out and I'm going to try to live in that identity. I'm going to try to work hard for his glory.
Not because I'm scared he's going to kick me out, but because of who he has called me. The culture of this family is that the son works hard. The daughter works hard for the kingdom and that's what I'm going to do. So my question is, hey, how are we doing with that? All right. How are we doing with that today? Let me give you some examples and then we're done.
All right. So just, just trying to hit some different groups of people. Maybe you're here today. You're working a normal job, but you don't, you hadn't seen it in this way. Listen, you are, if you're a Christian, you are a diligent son or daughter of the King. How are we honoring that position that we've been given in our working life? Are you cutting corners today?
Are you doing just enough to get by? I'm going to tell you in my life, I had to learn how to work hard and, and, and what I don't mean, I had a bad, I had a good dad. I had a good dad.
I had a good mom, man. They, they, they worked extremely hard. They modeled hard work. I had no problem working hard.
Okay. I wouldn't, I never had a problem like, you know, wanting to lay in the bed all day or whatever, but in my twenties, what I wanted to do was get my job done so that then I could go do whatever else I wanted to do. You know, like I wanted to work my, my job, even as a full-time job, I wanted to work it and get it done and I could do a good job with it. But really it was like, how fast can I get through this so that I can have my time for these other things?
You know, what, whatever it is. And that might be where you are today. Like we need to grow.
We didn't even need to be discipled out of some of that stuff where we can kind of move towards seeing our work as something that is so good that God has given us to do. Um, maybe so it's, maybe it's that, Hey, maybe you're a college students. They're a high school student today. Your job is them grades. Your parents tell you, and that's where you spend a lot of your time and energy and work, but man, are they slipping? And it's not because you're giving it your best, but it's because the truth is it's like, man, you're a college student and NCAA 2025 just came out on PlayStation five and that's more fun than going, than going to class, you know, playing the game or, I mean, I'm staying up too late and that's just, man, I'm not, I'm not able to get out of the bed in the morning, man. Is that honoring to God?
Is that your identity? If you're a Christian, is that what God has for you? Or is there something we need to repent of in that maybe it's an actual in poverty type situation? You know, the, the thing about a church like this, and this is maybe where you are, if you have not seen hard work model, and that's coming out in your life, it's a perpetual financial problem that you have. You got plenty of jobs and you just keep, it's like a carousel.
You keep getting fired or you keep having to quit. There's excuses. They're not starting.
There's not finishing all that. You need to lock into this church because there are people in this church that would love to help you, man. They want to help.
They don't want to hand out. They want to help you. They want to help you with employment. They want to help you with diligence. They want to help you with learning how to stick with something.
I mean, they will. And I really mean that Psalm 37 tells us, David says, I have never seen the righteous forsaken. And I think that's, I think there's a lot of truth to that. I'm thinking about my life and I'm like, have I ever, have I ever seen anybody who, who truly bought in at Mercy Hill from any socioeconomic background, I'm saying when all in I'm going to serve and I'm going to be in a group that way. I'm in, I'm in all these relationships with people. Have I ever seen that person forsaken?
And the answer is like, no. If you, if you get all the way in and you stay all the way in, you got people in this church that want to help you. And so if that's where you are today, if it's actually a slothful slugger type of thing, man, here's a wide open door for you today. That's not the identity that God has for you.
You got people in this church that will help you step forward, live in that identity. Last thing I'll say is this, man, some of my favorite people at Mercy Hill are my, I call them fourth quarter people, man. There's nothing more important than the fourth quarter. Okay. So, I mean, if you're 60 plus, that's what we say fourth quarter, only thing more important than fourth quarter is overtime. Right. And that's, that's more important, but that, that, that fourth quarter of our life.
All right. That fourth quarter of our life needs to be the most impactful quarter for the kingdom. And it can be the American dream is an American nightmare. Hey, work your hard your whole life so that you can play with the last part of your life. God ain't created you like that. He's not created you to be that he's created you to be a worker. I mean, I love my son's football coach always says I quit school because of recess.
Okay. I'm here to work. And, and that's, and that's what, that is what some of us, I see this model so well in our church, man, some of you guys are busier now than you were when you were working your career. I mean, you're serving, you're on boards and stuff locally. You're figuring out ways to give your time, talent, and treasure. You're pouring into your grandkids. You're realizing there's a bunch of people in this church, a bunch of kids in this church that need people to be there for, uh, for, you know, for stuff, a student ministry or serving on the weekends.
I mean, I see you guys hustling. I just want to call out to everybody else as we approach that fourth quarter, as we think about that fourth quarter of life, let us have this in our mind. And then God, God is maybe your, maybe your job changes. Okay. We're retired. Maybe you're able to do that. That that's great. That's awesome.
Maybe you're able to play some golf or got a mountain house, whatever. Awesome. Okay. Enjoy it to the glory of God. But at the same time, um, and you're never not a worker, you know, this is what, this is what humanity is. What God has given to humanity. So let's approach it that way. I want to end with a really awesome video of some people in our church. Y'all these guys got every excuse in the world if they didn't want to work. Um, and instead they see the value of it is a powerful story to end on.
Let's play it. I had to kind of mourn the life that I thought I was going to have because who thinks that, you know, they're going to start high school with one leg in a wheelchair. I was like, I'm never going to have a boyfriend, a job.
I'm not going to get married. Who's going to want to be my friend because in 2004, like who knew of amputations and people with disabilities, it just wasn't prevalent back then. After further exploration, they discovered that I had a rare bone cancer called Uane sarcoma. And that led to Duke where I had 14 chemo treatments.
And, um, we tried to save my leg through, uh, taking the bone out and putting a metal rod in and that didn't take. And so ultimately we had my leg amputated the week before my 14th birthday. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
It was called an astrocytoma. When I was 10 years old in elementary school, my teacher loved to take us outside, play kit ball. And he noticed that I was having trouble throwing the kit ball with my right hand, which he knew that was a bit odd because I was a very active kid, very athletic. And so then he wanted to have a meeting with my mom and my dad. And then we scheduled an appointment with a family friend doctor here in the triad and noticed that there was a mass on my brain. And so he wanted to refer me to a doctor at Duke hospital as well.
And so within two weeks from the time I was in the doctor's office in the triad to the time I was at Duke, I was already scheduled to have a biopsy done. For me, it's not living differently. Like we just live our lives. I don't see myself as a superhero or an inspiration or anything.
Like I literally am just me. And so I think it's really cool when people say, you have no idea how much you've touched me or, you know, you've inspired me so much because to me, it's just, I'm just me, you know? And so I've been told so many times, like, I love that you have a smile on your face. You know, I love that you, you know, still have a bubbly personality, even though you have one leg or, you know, you have been through this really hard thing, but the reality is, is we all have hard things. Mine is just physical and, you know, we still have things in life that, you know, are hard. Like I still have hard days where I cry or I get frustrated because I can't do something that I wish I could do a different way. So I've never let my disability stop me from being me working, things like that. My dad instilled that into me at a very young age that to succeed, you have to work. So I've never had the mentality of wanting to not work and not progress in life. 20 years, cancer free. And so I've been married now three years with Trey and, and now I'm a librarian and high point.
And so God has really took in some thorns and, and turned it into like a garden. And so that's been really cool to see your mind, whatever you feed it is, is what you're going to do. And so it never occurred to me to be on disability. I do have people ask me often, why don't you just do disability? But for me, it's like, I'm very able to work. I enjoy my job. I enjoy my students and I enjoy like being able to make a small impact, you know, where I am. The importance of work and the life of a believer is God's gave us each and every one of us a talent and an ability to honor him with. And so I work in banking. So that's not really a glorifying job, so to speak when it comes to the kingdom, but the way I portray myself at work and on my daily life, that is what draws people in.
God has us places for a reason. And I try by the way I speak and act and just seeing Christ in me, they, they know something is different. Work is hard and it's, but it's necessary. And so thank you for whatever you're doing and just knowing that God is using you through this work. And I pray that wherever you are, that you will be the light at your work.
