Observations from an Anthill

You see, remember, ladies and gentlemen, you are performing your vocatio. And you're going to get up tomorrow morning and we're all going to go and we're going to be summoned. We're going to be called by God.

You have a calling from God. Get up tomorrow morning and let's in the name of Christ serve him with utter excellence and dedication and passion because we happen to live, especially in this culture, surrounded by professional sluggards. Proverbs tells us to consider the ways of the ant to gain wisdom.

Ants don't need a supervisor to motivate them. They instinctively work hard, plan for the future and pool their resources. But how does this apply to your work ethic, your calling and your approach to life? In today's message, you'll discover Solomon's wisdom on how diligence and teamwork not only honor God but also lead to a life well lived. If you're feeling stuck, unmotivated or overwhelmed by work, Stephen's message could transform your life. In a book authored by Chuck Swindolli, he retells the rather humorous anonymous testimony of someone who was overworked and tired of it. Maybe you can identify. Here's what this disgruntled overworked person had to say and I quote, I'm tired. For several years I've been blaming it on middle age, iron poor blood, lack of vitamins, air pollution, water pollution, saccharin, weight, dieting, wax build up and a dozen other maladies that make you wonder if it's really worth the effort.

But now I found out it's none of those things. I'm tired because I'm overworked and I figured out why. The population of this country is around 300 million. But 98 million are retired. That leaves 202 million to do all the work. But there are 161 million in school which leaves 41 million to do the work. Of this total there are 22 million employed by the federal government and another 14.8 million people employed by the state and city government and none of them are doing any work which leaves us with 4 million, 200,000 people to do all the work. Four million are serving all over the world in the military so that leaves 200,000 people to do all the work. 188,000 of them are sick and in the hospital so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. There are 11,998 people in prison so that leaves just two people to do all the work.

You and me and you're standing there reading a book. No wonder I'm tired this person says. Well as I prepared for this particular study it occurred to me there's a vast difference between being tired because of work and being tired of work. Have you ever met anybody who worked hard at keeping away from work? There probably isn't any better testimony for Christ than someone who works hard enough on the job to get genuinely tired. The average person I have read in America gets paid for 40 hours a week but actually works around 30 and it's even slipping below that.

Sick days are all used up as well as vacation days, personal days, holidays. The Bible doesn't recommend that Christians become workaholics. As a matter of fact the quantity of work hours on the job isn't as much an issue in the scripture as the quality of work performed. Paul told the Colossian believers exactly how they were to show up and work on the job. He writes, Do your work heartily as unto the Lord rather than for men knowing that from the Lord you will receive your reward. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve. Colossians 3 23 and 24. The trouble is in the church we have drawn an artificial line between the secular and the sacred.

You could get really excited and we do about discipling a group of men. I mean God definitely will reward diligence in that. But how does that compare to doing the laundry or the dishes or laying tile or filing a brief. We have forgotten that we are not working for men as Paul reminded the Colossians we are ultimately working for God.

In fact the Latin word vocational which gives us our word vocation literally means a calling a summons to duty. The truth is Solomon had a lot to say with how we live at work. The kind of employee we are.

In fact throughout the book of Proverbs Solomon continually warns his sons and daughters who follow along in this quest for a hidden treasure. He says look as you're as you're searching for wisdom there's somebody I've got to warn you about. And he shows up over and over again. One kind of employee you never want to hire. This is the worst roommate you could ever have in college. This is the most discouraging player on the team.

This is the most difficult person to work around. Solomon calls him the sluggered. What a word.

What a name. Solomon describes him with rather bold and frank language throughout these problems. In fact as I was just looking through the different characters that we're going to begin to study this guy kept showing up. He appears 16 times in the book of Proverbs. The word sluggered actually is best defined by the different texts that describe them. So we'll define them by his descriptions that appear Chapter 10 verse 26. You could turn there and let me give you the principle his work patterns are undependable.

Chapter 10 verse 26 like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes. So is the lazy one. There's the word for sluggered to those who send him.

In other words you cannot depend on the schedule of a lazy man. In fact Solomon specifically refers here in this text to giving him a message to deliver to someone else. If you use a sluggered to deliver the message you're going to end up with your teeth on edge. It will just set your teeth on edge by his failure. You'll kind of grind your your teeth further. Notice Solomon says you give a slugger the message to deliver and it's going to be like smoke to your eyes.

What happens when smoke gets in your eyes. It stings. It brings tears to your eyes.

That's what he's saying. Listen a slugger is going to make you cry. It's going to bring tears to your eyes out of pain and frustration. And here's the point. The sluggered doesn't even care.

What's the problem. The boss can only bang his head on the wall and take some medicine for ulcers and cry tears of frustration. The work patterns of a sluggered are undependable. Bruce Wilkie said a sluggered is without a moral sense of responsibility to other people. Secondly the excuses of a sluggered are unbelievable. Look over a chapter twenty two and verse 13 the sluggered doesn't want to come to work. He's got to come up with an excuse. So what is he going to say.

The slugger says there is a lion outside. I'm going to be killed in the streets. This goes way beyond calling in sick. Have you ever heard this one.

You know calling in sick is just too plain Jane. No no no. Haven't you heard there's a lion. Loose. If I leave I could be eaten. And the boss is thinking try it.

That'll be OK. If you are. Could be true I guess a lion could be loose but his excuses are so unbelievable that after a while you are simply in awe of his creative ability to come up with excuses. One author said it's as if the sluggered summons all his creative energy into making excuses rather than making a living. The believer who is dedicated to professing the glory of God through his vocation his calling will tell the truth and he will live the truth at work.

Benjamin Franklin once said he that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else. Thirdly the spirit of a slugger is unteachable. Look at Chapter 26 and notice for 16. This is getting to the heart and core of the problem.

Twenty six sixteen. The slugger is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can give a discrete or a reasonable answer. In other words you just try to challenge a lazy woman or a lazy man about their careless work or their late appearances or their failure to meet the latest deadline or turn in the latest report whatever you are waiting on and they will respond with more logic and reasoning than seven people combined. Just ask him. He's your best employee.

You just didn't know it. She's the one who's really working the hardest around this place where you work. How how can you do anything less than give them the biggest compliments and the largest bonuses because if it weren't for him or for her the place would fall apart in a week.

Just ask them. They'll tell you why. Solomon said in Proverbs this chapter they are wiser and more valuable in their own eyes than anybody else. And listen the truth is they are actually costly to the company. Their team is always having to pull this guy's weight along. They talk it up but they don't work. Solomon wrote in Chapter 18 verse 9 he who is slack in his work is brother to him who destroys. In other words he indirectly destroys he destroys morale and profit and you might not be able to track it back to him because he's just related to the problem. But if you can finally track it back she is the issue and they cannot be challenged. They refuse to change.

They have all the answers. The spirit of a sluggard is unteachable. Number four the expectations of the sluggard are unreasonable they're unreasonable. You listen to a person without any internal initiative. These are people who lack self motivating objectives.

But listen to that sluggard who sits next to you in that college class or works down the hallway from you or across the lathe in the machine shop. They consistently avoid the hard tasks and the late hours in the library. They refuse to pay the price and sweat it out.

Yet they talk about everything they are going to have and gain. They have these incredibly high expectations. He's the one that's going to go places.

You just talk to him at lunch at work. She's the one that's really going to make it. They're going to build this and reach that and win this and do that and get there and you watch you will see. But then you watch their lives at work and discover that they are expecting everything without ever lifting a hand. Listen without turning for the sake of time. What Solomon says the sluggard in Chapter 20 verse 4 does not plow after the autumn.

But notice this. He asks during the harvest but finds nothing. He didn't plow. He didn't play it. But he goes out to his field and says Well where is it.

I'm ready. His expectations are absolutely unreasonable. In Chapter 21 verse 25 and 26 it says the desire of the sluggard puts him to death all day long. He is craving. In other words every day he wakes up and he finally gets out of bed and he desires another desire. He simply lives a life of coveting. But his expectations are unreasonable. His spirit is unteachable. His excuses are unbelievable and his work patterns are undependable. So he goes out to a field and it's hard to imagine but he says I have done nothing.

I'm ready for the harvest. He will expect you as his employer to pay up without ever paying in. And he can't quite figure out why you might have a problem with that. One more description about the private life of a sluggard and that is it's unaccountable. The private life of a sluggard is unaccountable. Chapter 26 verse 14 as the door turns on its hinges so does the sluggard on his bed. He uses the metaphor of a double hinged door. There's a lot of movement but that door is really not going anywhere. No forward motion. This is the sluggard in bed. He's turning back and forth.

There's a lot of motion but no forward motion or movement. Look at verse 15 he writes the sluggard is so lazy that he buries his hand in the dish and is too weary to bring it back to his mouth again. This is total apathy. It's as if he needs someone to feed him. He doesn't want to take his hand from the dish to his mouth. This employee this roommate this co-worker Solomon writes is headed for disaster. Solomon has one solution for the sluggard that he believes the spirit of God through him will make a difference. Go back to Chapter 6 where he offers this unique solution. Look first at verse 9. How long will you lie down sluggard.

When will you arise from your sleep. Notice verse 11 your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. In other words you are being robbed of an excellent life and you don't even realize the burglar has moved in and is living in your guest room.

You're cutting corners at work you're coming in late making up excuses not filling out the terms of the contract your dead weight in the boardroom on the dorm floor you're allowing your life he says to literally be stolen away. Look at verse 10. Well come on. Most believe this is the word of the slugger a little sleep a little slumber a little just a little folding of the hands. I'm just I'm just taking a little nap. Solomon is not referring to a nap brought on by fatigue the end of a long week. It isn't that kind of nap. One author writes this commentary the sluggard will lose his life not everything overnight but just the whiling away minute by minute inch by inch just a little here and a little there.

He will waste his life away by degrees. Here's the solution. Look at verse 6. Go to the ant. Oh sluggard observe her ways and be wise. Study the ant.

That's the solution. So I did a little extra study on the ant to try to figure out what Solomon might have had in mind. It's hard to know where to start but I found out some interesting things. One single ant colony can include over five million busy ants soldier ants to guard the colony worker ants that they have all their jobs to do their cleaning or caring for the queen and gathering food all of it implanted in their created instincts by God's amazing Argentine ants keep herds of cows. They are plant lice. The Mediterranean ant makes biscuits from seeds. Honey ants store their food and living storage tanks. Amazon ants have employees to help with the work. There are literally thousands of species. I discovered that ants can lift up to 30 to 40 times their weight.

Now we've seen them going across the sidewalk carrying some big stuff but in terms of understanding what this ratio would be that would be like you and I leaving here going out into the parking lot and lifting an SUV on our back. The leaf cutting ant builds mounds that contain as many as three thousand chambers and house up to four million ants in one mound. Now here's the amazing thing. Look back at your text Solomon writes in verse seven. He says the ants have no chief officer or ruler. Can you imagine the state of North Carolina surviving or any state for that matter without police officers and government officials and civil support systems. Nothing is provided for the ant. They do it all themselves.

And in one colony four million can all work together without chiefs officers and rulers. They just work hard and they get all they need. One woman sent in a brief story of what happened when she visited her parents home on the farm. Her five year old niece had come along and she was really excited because grandpa and grandma were farmers and the corn was ready to be picked.

She'd never picked corn and shelled it. So that was going to be the excitement. So they went out there and this little five year old niece really tore into it. At first the work was fun. But after a few minutes this little five year old looked up at her grandmother and said you know you can buy this in the store don't you. Didn't take long. Five year old caught it. We're so used to it's all packaged and delivered and ready and prepared.

Work is fun until you have to do it. Solomon says go to the ant. Oh sluggard observe her ways and find wisdom. Be wise. Go to the anthill. Now what observations can we make about ants and us.

Let me give you several quickly. Number one they seem to have an internal eye on the future. If you look at verse eight here it says that the ant prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provisions in the harvest. That is they know the season of being able to work and the season when they cannot work and gathering food will be over. Wouldn't it be great to consider the fact that Christ will gather us before the beam a seat and reward us for glorifying the father by our good works. First Corinthians three verse 13 where every man's work will be revealed that we would in fact work for the night is coming. We would have this internal clock going that one day we will stand before Christ. There's something about numbering our days David said that gives us a heart of wisdom.

There seems to be this internal clock seasonal clock in the ant keeps them pressing forward and a trip to the anthill would result in some very practical questions. What kind of employee are we. What's our work ethic.

What kind of student are you. What does the teacher think when he or she sees you come into the classroom. What does your boss think when you show up and you pass him in the hallway. What does he think of the quality of your work.

Don't forget according to the word of God the review that really matters is not at the end of the fiscal year is the beam a seat where Christ will evaluate not only the work and quality of our hands with the attitude of our hearts. Observation number two ants labor according to their divinely created calling. If they are worker ants they work. If they are queen ants they lay eggs. If they're cutter ants they gather leaves.

If they are army ants they guard the mound. It gets back to this calling of God for the believer your your vocation your calling happens to be your your profession whatever it is as you walk with God you're doing right now honor God in it. Consider it a sacred calling.

What is the quality. What is the excellence of what our hand does. Frankly a lazy Christian is a contradiction of terms.

Your work is a sacred calling from and unto Christ. One more observation they unite their efforts and pool their strength and resources. I have watched an ant struggling under a load haven't you just watch and another one will come along and they're not going to arm wrestle to see who has to carry it. They're just going to both start carrying it and then another one comes along. And before you know they're carrying the picnic basket away.

They work together well. What a great illustration for the family at home and the family at church. If the church if our church was effective today in demonstrating the grace of God in delivering the truth of the gospel it was because there were more than a thousand people we didn't see who were doing a thousand different things. They'll never be rewarded on the platform they'll probably go unnoticed by the majority of the church but their faithful service working even if they aren't rewarded on this planet matters to them.

I'll try to wrap it up here with this. This is a great illustration of the critical nature of our work in the gospel and why we should serve with excellence. The Texas Army National Guard. I'd never heard of a group of people that allow them to stay alive. They're a group of special workers called riggers. Their job is to fold and pack the parachutes the soldiers are going to use when they jump from an airplane at five thousand feet. These people are intensely dedicated to their task. In fact they have a creed. The riggers creed is and I quote I will be sure always they know jumpers need assurance that everything regarding their shoot is perfect.

You think about it there's no room for error in the 20 minutes it takes to meticulously pack an MC 1 1 military parachute exactly 30 folds are required in a certain way. And so the riggers creed further states I will never let the idea that a piece of work is good enough. There can be no compromise with perfection. And maybe you think well now wait a second that's a little too perfectionistic for me. Not if you've got to jump out of an airplane with their work on your back. Suddenly it's very important how perfect it was. Can you imagine being told you're in the guard.

Listen your parachute was packed by that sluggard over there. We think he stayed awake and did 30 fold. You know he loses track doesn't usually count it'll be OK. No his work matters to you. And so our work matters not just to one another but to God. If God would take note of the ant and commend them to us. Imagine what we mean to him. You see remember ladies and gentlemen you are performing your vocatio and you're going to get up tomorrow morning and we're all going to go and we're going to be summoned. We're going to be called by God. You have a calling from God. Get up tomorrow morning and let's in the name of Christ serve him with utter excellence and dedication and passion because we happen to live especially in this culture surrounded by professional sluggards. So let's be different and so glorify our Christ.

And one day one day can you imagine standing before him and hearing him say well done thou good and faithful servant. These lessons can bring the greatest clarity observing the ant reminds us to work with diligence embrace teamwork and honor God in everything you do whether in your career home or ministry your efforts are seen and will be rewarded by Christ. That was Stephen Davey and this is wisdom for the heart. Today's message is called observations from an anthill. We have two resources that I want to tell you about today. First of all today's message is available as a booklet. If you'd like to have a copy of observations from an anthill in booklet form give us a call.

It's available today at a deeply discounted rate. So call 866 48 Bible. The next resource I want to tell you about is Stephen's hardback book entitled The Quest for Hidden Treasure. Stephen has taken this entire teaching series from Proverbs and turned it into a hardback book. It's an incredible resource to help you walk wisely through life.

It also makes a wonderful gift. If you'd like information on the book The Quest for Hidden Treasure call 866 48 Bible or 866 482 4253. Both of these resources are also available on our website. You'll find us online at wisdomonline.org.

When you navigate to the store you can search for either observations from an anthill or The Quest for Hidden Treasure. Both of these resources are discounted today so take advantage of this opportunity to have these in your library of biblical resources. I'm Scott Wiley and on behalf of Stephen Davey and the entire Wisdom International team I want to thank you for listening. We're so glad you've joined us. We're going to continue through this series from Proverbs in the days ahead so be sure and join us back here next time on Wisdom for the Heart.