Hard Work - The Christian's Duty

So, let's pray and begin our time. Father, thank you for today. Lord, you are a great God, and we are grateful that we could be here in the middle of the week to be refueled and recharged and to understand our responsibility as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We are grateful, Lord, for how it is you work in each of us. We realize, Lord, that you are sovereign and that you rule over all, and that, Lord, you have a perfect plan for everybody in the room, and that plan runs directly on course, and we have a responsibility to love you all the more and serve you all the more.

And tonight, as we learn from your word, we pray that you teach us and instruct us in the way that we should go, that we might live for you only, serve you only, and that others will know that Jesus Christ reigns supreme in our hearts and lives. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Second Thessalonians chapter three.

Second Thessalonians chapter three. We only have one more sermon after this. It won't be next week. It will be the week after because my father-in-law will be here next Wednesday night. We're going to have him speak, and then we'll finish out Second Thessalonians two weeks from tonight.

And then this summer, Bruce McLean, our missionary in residence, is going to preach on 12 different psalms throughout the summertime. And so we're looking forward to that as we anticipate the things that God's going to teach us through the psalms. But tonight we're in Second Thessalonians chapter three.

We're looking at a problem that this church has. Now the church at Thessalonica was a church that didn't have very many problems. They were a model church. Of all the churches in the New Testament, the church at Thessalonica was the model church. All you got to do is read chapter one of First Thessalonians and realize all the things that they did and how they did them, how the word of the Lord would spring forth, trumpet forth from them all the way from Macedonia to Achaia, and how the Lord would use them in a powerful way in their ministry.

And they kept growing in their walk with the Lord. They kept serving the Lord. They served one another. They were a model church. And so as you read First Thessalonians, you realize what Paul taught them, how they grew, and how they were used.

But they weren't a church without problems. All churches have problems. That's really not a problem. All churches have people. People are not a problem. But if you don't deal with the people who cause the problems, you got lots of problems, right? So having conflict and difficulties and problems is really not an issue. How you handle them becomes the issue. And if you don't do it God's way, then you're going to have major issues in your church. And so what Paul does tonight is deal with an issue that most of us would not even think is a sinful issue, but it is.

It's called laziness. It's called idleness. It's called being a life or living a life that's unruly and undisciplined. Now if I was to ask you, are you a disciplined person, you probably would say yes. And I wouldn't debate you on that fact. I wouldn't know. You know. Your family knows. But most people think they live a disciplined life, not realizing that most of what they do happens just because it happens, not because they're disciplined. And so we want you to see that because Paul points that out about people in this church that were unruly, undisciplined, and became busybodies in the church.

Maybe they were thinking the Lord's going to come back, and because He's going to come back at any moment, that's what Paul tells us, right? Why go to work? Why waste our time working when we can just spend our time doing nothing, and relaxing, and figuring out everybody else's problem, and that kind of thing. And so maybe that's what they were doing. We don't know what caused these people not to want to work. They were able to work. They had the opportunity to work. They chose not to work. And Paul said, this is sin.

And he addresses it because he calls them lazy, unruly, undisciplined individuals. And they began to wreak havoc in the church. And so the church is wondering, what do we do with these people who refuse to work? What do we do with these people who are lazy, as Proverbs calls them, sluggards, sloths? What do we do with these people? And so Paul addresses that. Now, he says these words, verse 6, Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life, and not according to the tradition which you receive from us.

For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you. Nor did we eat anyone's bread without paying for it. But with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day, so we would not be a burden to any of you, not because we did not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either.

For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and to eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. If anyone does not obey our instruction, in this letter, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he will be put to shame. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

Now think about that. Paul instructs them, if the people of the church do not listen to this command, this command from the Lord Jesus, you need not associate with him. And you read that and you think, well, why would the Apostle Paul ever tell somebody in the church not to associate with somebody else in the church? After all, twice he calls them brothers. So evidently they're believers, but why was it we're not able to associate with other believers who live an undisciplined, unruly life? That's a great question.

But you know what? Paul hits on this issue quite frequently. Turn with me to Romans chapter 16, just so that you know this is just not a one-time event.

Romans chapter 16, verse number 17, Paul says, Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Jesus Christ, but of their own appetites. And by their smooth and flattering speech, they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. So here, Paul tells the church at Rome, you got to be very careful about people who pervert the gospel, who teach something different than what you have been taught, especially in the book of Romans that deals with the great doctrine of soteriology, what it means to be saved, how God saves a sinner.

And so you got to be very careful with those kinds of people. You don't have to debate them, but you need to remove yourself from them. Paul knew that within the church, there are kinds of people that creep in unnoticed. Peter would warn about it. Jude says in Jude 3 and 4, they're already here. That was 2,000 years ago. And Paul would say in the book of Acts, the 20th chapter, these words. He says in verse 25, and now behold, I know that all of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will no longer see my face.

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men. For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among you which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. To shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years, I did not cease to admonish each one of you with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. The apostle Paul knew as he spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, there are going to be people that rise from within the church and they're going to rise up and they're going to lead disciples away.

They're going to move in and Satan's going to use them in a very powerful way to draw people away from the truth. So be on guard, it's going to happen. And so in Romans 16, Paul warns that once these people come in and they teach something different than what you've already been taught, be very careful because the perversity of the gospel can spread rapidly and can destroy many people's lives. So in Romans 16, Paul says, listen, stay away from those who are in doctrinal error. In first Corinthians 5, he says, stay away from those who are in deliberate immorality.

First Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says these words, I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the immoral people.

I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world or with the covetous, the swindlers or the idolaters for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person or covetous or an idolater or a reviler or a drunkard or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. For what I have I to do with judging outsiders. Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

Paul gives a stern warning. If there's a so-called brother, that means he professes to be a Christian. He professes to be a brother in Christ and he lives in deliberate immorality. He lives in deliberate disobedience to the authority of God's word. He's a drunkard. He's a swindler. He's an immoral person. You need to remove that wicked one and you need not associate with that person. Why? Bad company corrupts good morals. You see, we can know a lot about you just by the people you follow. Right? You ever think about that?

Think of the people your children follow. Oh, even this. Think of the people you follow on Instagram. Now I'm meddling. I know that. I understand that. But see, who you follow on Instagram tells us a lot about who you are. You got to be careful who you follow because they will influence you one way or the other. If someone is not influencing you toward Christ, they're going to influence you away from Christ. That's why as parents, we have to know what our children are doing on Facebook, Instagram or social media so we are able to monitor what it is they're doing, who they're following.

Because if we're not careful, they can be swept away. If Paul's concerned about the church, I wonder what he would say today if lived in the day of social media exploding like it has. I wonder what he'd say to the church. He says, look, you can't associate with these people. So he talks about those in doctrinal error in Romans 16, those in deliberate immorality in 1 Corinthians 5, and in Titus 3, those with divisive attitudes. Look what it says here. But, Titus 3 verse 9, avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, strife, disputes about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.

Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.

You need to avoid the factious man. Now the word factious means to choose. And what they have chosen to do is not follow the truth and to follow godly leaders, but to follow their own self-willed opinion. Now listen, when there are discussions in the church or even disagreements in the church, even about doctrinal issues, that's not a bad thing. That can be a very healthy thing, to be able to discuss those things and work through those things. Why? Because, listen, if you're not questioning the doctrine of bibliology, which deals with the authority and inerrancy of scripture.

If you're not questioning the doctrine of the deity of Christ, right, and the sinfulness of man. If you're not questioning the personal work of the Messiah, okay, those essential elements to salvation, but you're dealing with other issues that are not of primary importance, that's okay. You can do that, but you don't want to become a factious kind of person, a divisive kind of person, where you choose your opinion over the authority of God's holy word. Because we're all subject to the same authority, right?

We all place ourselves under the authority of Christ, the chief shepherd. He's given us his word so we can follow his teaching, and therefore we study it, right? The Bereans, we search for it. But Paul says, there are some who are very divisive. They're called factious people. You warn them once, you warn them again, and because after that second warning, they are unwilling to bend and be submissive and follow the direction of the church, that person you got to reject.

Why? Because divisive attitudes are destructive in the church. The church is about unity. It's about coming together, being of one mind, a sound mind, believing the same things about the scriptures. So you're doing the same kind of work of ministry. Satan would love to do all he can to divide the church and cause people to rise up and be factious individuals because they're unwilling to submit to the truth of God's holy word. So Paul has said, listen, you need to avoid those in doctrinal error, those in deliberate immorality, those with divisive attitudes, and those who are in determined rebellion.

And that's where Matthew 18 comes in, where it says, If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have warned your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

And again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by my Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst. Now that's not a verse about prayer, it's a verse about church discipline. It's a verse about people coming together and agreeing that this person is in sin, he's been confronted or she's been confronted, they refuse to repent, they've been confronted again, they still refuse to repent, you tell it to the church, why?

So the church can go after them and plead with them to repent, to turn from their sin, that they might follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and they don't want to follow that, then you treat them as a tax gatherer or a Gentile, someone outside the church. Why? Well, because you're going to confirm them in their sin, or confirm them in their repentance from their sin. And when two or three of you are gathered together in doing the work that deals with the purity of the church, remember Matthew 18 is the first instruction given for the church in the New Testament, it's not the book of Acts, it's Matthew 18, it's the very first instruction given to the church by the Lord Jesus, because his number one concern for the church is what?

The purity of the church, the holiness of the church, the church represents Christ. And so before the church is ever birthed in Acts 2, right, he gives instruction about this ecclesia, these called out ones that are going to gather together and be his assembly, his bride, his chosen ones. He wants them to be pure, holy, and blameless. And the only way that happens is when there is someone in the church who refuses to submit to the authority of God's Word, and the church goes after that person and begs them, pleads with them to repent and turn from their sin and follow the Lord.

It's only after you've gone through the process of Matthew 18 that you treat them as a tax gatherer, you treat them as a Gentile, one outside the assembly, why? Because they are a great detriment to the church. So it's very important to realize that Paul and Christ have spoken of this already. So when you come to 2 Thessalonians 3, something we don't even think of necessarily, we can understand someone living in immorality, right? We can understand someone who has a divisive spirit and wants to divide the church.

We get that, right? We understand someone who's in sin and you go to your brother and he refuses to repent over and over and over again. We understand that. But truly an unruly life? We've got to deal with those people too? Yes, yes. We don't even think about this. But this becomes so important, so important that Paul addresses it in this model church because they had a problem with these kind of people who did not want to work, who wanted to be freeloaders, they wanted to have free meals, they wanted to live off everybody else who was already working, they wanted to develop their own welfare system so they can live by themselves and not have to do any kind of work.

Paul says these people are unruly. It's a military term, which means out of order. They're out of line. They refuse to be ruled, listen, by their own spirit. An unruly person refuses to be ruled by the inner man. He wants to live his own way. That is a big deterrent to the growth of the body of Christ. So in 2 Thessalonians, he hits it. Now why is this so important? Well the book of Proverbs sits on this quite regularly. If you've got your Bible, turn back with me if you would to the book of Proverbs, the 10th chapter.

Let me just give you a few verses to show you what Solomon says. He was the wisest man who ever lived, right? Very wise man, very rich man, had too many wives, too many concubines. That's another story for another day. But in Proverbs 10, 26, it says, like vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is the lazy one to those who send him. Think about that. You ever had smoke in your eyes? Man, it's just such an irritant, right? You can't open them. You're like, oh man, the smoke is just, it's just so thick, I can't, or vinegar on your teeth.

Oh man, that's just nasty. It's such an irritant. Well so is the lazy man that's been sent out by his employer. That's the way the employer feels, completely irritated. Here is one who truly drags their feet, the lazy man. The one who's always watching the clock because they can't wait to get home. Not watching the clock because they want to do more work, they just watch the clock because they hope time flies so they can go home quicker. But these people are an irritant to their employers. And then look over in Proverbs 12, verse number 27, a lazy man does not roast his prey.

In other words, he doesn't get to eat. He can't eat. Why? He's lazy. But the precious possession of a man is diligence. Diligence. The most precious possession a man has is his diligence. His ability to stick to the task and complete it. It's the disciplined life. Look what it says in verse 24, the hand of the diligent will rule, but the slack hand, the slothful hand, the lazy hand will be put to forced labor. In other words, the hand of the diligent is the hand that rules. The hand of the diligent is the one who's in charge.

Why? Because they're able to dispend their time. They're going to run the show. The one with the lazy hand, they're going to be ran by those who run the show, by the diligent man. It says up in verse 11, same chapter, chapter 12, he who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues worthless things lacks heart, lacks sense. Those who pursue the worthless things don't have a passionate drive to get things done. They won't feed off the bread of the land. And so Solomon warns against the lazy man.

He accentuates the self-starter. He accentuates the initiator, the one who invests his time and invests his strength, the one who is driven, not the one who's lazy. And then you go over to Proverbs chapter 15, I'm sorry, Proverbs 13, verse number four, the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the soul of the diligent is made fat. The soul of the lazy man, it wants the new car, never gets the new car. Wants the new house, just can never afford to buy the new house because there's no work for it.

He wants the new clothes. He wants all the niceties of life, but he can't get them. But the diligent man, the soul that's diligent, that's the fat man. They're able to get the things they desire because they work hard for them, very hard. Proverbs 15, verse number 19, the way of the lazy is as a hedge of thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway. The path of the lazy is a hedge of thorns. In other words, the lazy man has his hedge keep growing and growing and growing and growing and growing.

And because of its thickness, he's unable to move with smoothness. But text says, the path of the upright man, the man who lives a righteous life, his path is smooth. It's not filled with thorns and hedges. This man works for a living. He is one who deals with the thorns and the hedges so that his way is made smooth. Then look over at Proverbs chapter 24, Proverbs chapter 24, Proverbs 24, verse number 30, I passed by the field of the sluggard and by the vineyard of the man who lacking sense. And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles.

Its surface was covered with nettles and a stone wall was broken down. When I saw, I reflected upon it, I looked and received instruction. Now think about this, when someone drives by your house, okay, they're going to receive instruction by what they see. If they see a wall that's broken down and not rebuilt, if they see a house whose paint is peeling off, if they see a house where whose yard is unkept, they're going to receive instruction. They're going to know something about your life. That's what he's saying.

I was driving by, I was walking by and I saw this man's field and I immediately received instruction. What was the instruction? 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 like an armed man. What begins with a little nap, a little sleep, a little folding of the hands? What begins with a little nap becomes a way of life, a way of life. You know, it's so easy for us to put off today what we can do tomorrow. Why do it today if I can do it tomorrow or do it next week?

We don't see ourselves as seeing the task and doing it. We have a saying in our house with our boys, see the need, meet the need. If you see the need, don't meet the need, guess what I do? I take a picture of it on my phone, then I text it to you at work and I say, you saw the need, but you didn't meet the need. So guess what? You're going to meet my needs now.

That's how it's going to work. See we run a tight ship because we want our children to be disciplined, we want our children to understand they have responsibility. If you see the need, meet the need, don't walk by the need because one day you're going to have your own house. One day you're going to have your own dishes, you're going to have your own car. So make sure you take care of the things that God has given you because they're God's possessions. It's God's house, not your house. God's car, not your car.

God's clothes, not your clothes. God's body, not your body, it's a temple of the Holy Spirit. So make sure you take care of it. Make sure you do what's right for it, be diligent, be disciplined. Then one more, Proverbs chapter six says this. Go to the ant, oh sluggard, observe her ways and be wise. Think about this. The sluggard's not to go to the lion, the sluggard's not to go to the tiger, the sluggard's not to go to the bear or the elephant. He's to go to the ant. The lazy man learns his greatest lesson from the tiniest of all creatures.

Think about that. Now remember, Solomon's the wisest guy who ever lived, so he knows what he's talking about. Plus it's the inspired word of God, so doubly important to understand that God said this through Solomon as he wrote the inspired word of God. Go to the ant, oh sluggard. Why? Look what it says. Which having no chief officer or ruler, prepares her food in the summer and gathers her provision in the harvest. In other words, the great thing about the ant is that the ant doesn't have to have anybody tell him what to do.

Think about that. Does somebody always have to tell you what to do? You want to train your children not to be told they have to do something. They see the need, they meet the need. They do the need. They see the task, they meet the task, right? You train them to be disciplined. You train them to live so that one day when you're not there, they can do what they need to do, right? Well the ant doesn't have a chief officer. The ant doesn't have a general. They just do what they do. And whenever you ever watch ants, they're quite fascinating.

We like to get the raid out, you know, and spray them and kill them all real quick, you know, or have the exterminator come and do whatever it is they do just to kill the ants. But you ought to sit down and just observe the ants. They're fascinating creatures. They never slow down. They're always on the go. And it's almost as if they're racing one another to get to where they need to go faster than the other guy does. But yet no one's telling them what to do. They just know they need to do it. They're self-starters.

They're initiators. In essence, they're all leaders. If someone has to tell you what to do, you're not a leader. You're just not. You're a follower, which is not bad. But you need to go to the ant and learn how to be a self-starter and how to be an initiator. How to be driven and how to be passionate. And you ever notice there's something about ants, they're always carrying stuff.

We're always looking to lighten our load, right? Ants are looking for a way to get more on their backs, to carry more things. They want to strengthen their load. We're always looking to lighten our load. We're always looking for another day off, another break, a shorter work week, right? Ants are looking for more days in the week to work, more opportunities to work, more things to carry when they go to work. Solomon says, you lazy? Go to the ant. Because the lessons you're going to learn there are lifelong lessons that will change everything about the way you live your life.

They says this, how long will you lie down on slugger? When will you arise from your sleep? How long will you not change? How long will you continue to just rest? Why don't you get up and get going? It says, same phrase as before, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest. Your poverty will come in like a vagabond and your need like an armed man. You will be so needy. You'll go through your life wanting this and wanting that, needing this, needing that, and you cannot ever obtain it because you're lazy.

You'll blame somebody else because inevitably that's what we do. We're victims, right? My parents didn't do this or they didn't leave me this, I didn't get that job, so-and-so got the job, I wasn't able to do this, I didn't have this education. We're always looking for a way to blame somebody else for where we are in life instead of saying, you know what, I had to take ownership because leadership is ownership. Understand that. If you're a leader, you take ownership, right? The elders of your church take ownership.

If something's wrong in the church, we as elders, we own it because we're leaders in the church. If something's wrong in my family, guess what, I own it. It might not be something that I actually did, but it's my family, I own it because leadership is ownership. You have to own your decision-making. You have to own your discipline. You have to own your way of life. All this is very, very important, and so we need to realize that the lazy man is spoken of quite frequently in Scripture. Interesting that when God called people in Scripture, they were actively working.

They were doing something. See we think that work is a result of the curse. No, no, read the book of Genesis again. In the book of Genesis, Adam was given the responsibility to keep the garden. Adam, work is a part of who we are, and a good moral work ethic is crucial, and so Adam was already at work. What was the result of the fall was sweat while you worked, and pain in your work. Why do you get tired and sweaty when you work? That's the result of the fall. Why does it hurt your back when you work for so long?

Result of the fall. Adam didn't have any sweat before the fall. He had no pains before the fall. He just did his job, and so work is not a result of the fall. Work was something Adam was supposed to do way before the fall, but the sweat of his brow and the pain he would experience, that was a result of the fall. Work is a very healthy thing. You've been created to work. Even in inheriting the Ten Commandments, six days the Lord worked, rested on the seventh. The seventh day, right? And so we say, okay, it's a commandment about rest.

It's also a commandment about work. It's a commandment about work as well as rest. You don't need to rest if you don't work. You're already resting, right? It's about working too, so in inheriting the Ten Commandments is the drive and the passion to work. That's why it's so important to understand what the Bible says concerning the lazy man.

That's all introductory. Let's go back to 2 Thessalonians 3. Look at Paul's exhortation. It's a strong command. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in line with the character and nature of who Christ is, we command you, keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life, an undisciplined life in verse 7, an undisciplined life in verse 11. An unruly life is an undisciplined life. It's the lazy life. It's the unwillingness to do what needs to be done to get things done throughout the day because you just don't want to work.

You'd rather just sit back, do nothing. Now they didn't have any TV to watch in those days, right? There was no TV. There was no ESPN. There was no social media to be on, okay? So that's why they became busybodies. That's why they became meddling in everybody else's affair. We do it now because of social media. They had to actually go and listen in on conversations, see? They actually had to do that, and they became busybodies. But Paul says, I'm going to exhort you, I'm going to give you command.

This is what you've got to do. You have got to stay away from, it's a word that means to pull back from, so you're not associating with them on a regular basis. Those who are not in line with the instruction that we're going to give you, meaning that they are disobedient to the command that God has given to them. You don't want to live and hang around people who deliberately and willingly live against the commands of God, because that will affect you in a negative way. So Paul addresses that. He says, these traditions he's given, he's already spoke to them about.

Over in 1 Thessalonians, in 1 Thessalonians 4, verse 11 and 12, he says this. Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, attend to your own business, and work with your hands just as we commended you. Paul has already addressed this with them. Now he's addressing it again, because the command he gave, they disobeyed. They felt, and maybe this is true, I don't know, Jesus is coming, who needs to keep working? He could come at any moment, let's be ready. But listen, what does Paul say, 1 Corinthians 15, 58, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, right?

Keep working for the Lord until he comes again. You have a responsibility to evangelize your city, your neighborhood, your nation, the world. Be abundant in the work of the Lord. It's never going to be empty. It's never going to be vain. It's always going to be worthwhile until Jesus comes again. But these people, they didn't want to follow the exhortation. They wanted to stand by and live an idle, lazy life. Now think about this. Way back in the book of 2 Samuel, let me show you what idleness does, okay?

Let me show you what laziness does. To Israel's greatest king, 2 Samuel 11, verse number one, then it happened in the spring at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him and all Israel, and they destroyed the sons of Ammon and besieged Rabbah.

But David stayed in Jerusalem. At the time when kings go to battle, David's a king, David didn't go to battle. He remained idle. He remained in neutral. He decided, you know what? I'm not going to fight this battle. I'm just going to stay back. I'm going to relax, take it easy, let somebody else do all the fighting. He had a responsibility as king. He didn't fulfill his responsibility as king. He became idle. So, idleness always leads to laziness. You grew up with this, I did. My mom used to always say, idle hands are what?

The devil's workshop. I must have heard that a million times growing up as a kid. That's why I always had chores to do. That's why I had palmolive hands, because I was always doing dishes, you know what I'm saying? And so, we didn't have a dishwasher in those days. I was a dishwasher, okay? And so, that's what we had to do. But idle hands are the devil's workshop. My mom was raised a farmer, okay? My father was raised in the military. Well, I got two strikes against me going in, because I can't ever sleep in.

My mother was always up before the chickens. She used to have a saying, right? If it's not done before seven, you're probably never going to get to heaven. Now, that's not true theologically, but that was her statement, okay? Get up, get to work, get what you need to be done, so that you can do what you need to do throughout the day. She had to go to school, right? So, she had to get up as a farmer to get the eggs from the chickens. She had to milk the cows, do all that stuff before she ever went to school, right?

Our kids today, man, they sleep in, they roll out of bed, and they roll on the bus and go to school. But the bottom line is, a lot of work. So, I'm raised in that environment, and my dad's in the military. So, everything is, yes, sir, no, sir, this, this, you know, everything's neat and order. He hand polishes his shoes every single night before he gets up the next day and puts them back on again. He starches all of his clothes, so that the crease is extremely stiff down the side of his arms, down the front of his legs, so when he puts them on, it's like, whoosh, whoosh, you know?

He puts his pants on, same with his shirt, whoosh, whoosh, you know? And it was like he was in cardboard when he went off to work every day. But that's my father, that's my mother, so I'm raised in that environment, they would never let me sleep in.

I couldn't even spell sleep in, let alone sleep in. My parents were against that totally. And so, it was always, get up, get what needs to be done, get going, get to school, get to work, get back home, get to bed, so you can get up again the next day and repeat. Well, it was every day, so I lived my life, so I was raised. Some would say, well, I wasn't raised that way. That's okay, because tonight you're hearing the sermon, so that you can change, see? People always say, you know, I'm not a morning person, right?

I hear this all the time. I was a college pastor for 10 years, right? Talking to college students about getting up, they always say, we're night people, we're night owls, we're not morning people. I said, okay, ask God to change you. Well, they don't want to do that. Why don't they want to do that? Because they like to sleep in, see? They don't want to get up. But you see, you have to get up. I love what Paul says, Paul didn't say, okay, listen, he says this, this is so good. He says, he says, for we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life.

Now, how he heard this, he's in court, right? How he hears this, I don't know. Nobody called him on the phone, no one sent him an email, okay? No one texted him. How did he hear this? But he heard they were living an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now, such persons we command you, exhorting the Lord Jesus Christ, to work in quiet fashion, eat their own bread. He says, go to work. He didn't tell you how to go to work, didn't tell you what to do to discipline your life.

He says, this is what you got to do. Interesting, the Bible doesn't say, okay, this is how you begin the discipline process. It says, you need to be disciplined. That's all it says. Get your act together. Just do it. Do what you need to be doing. We want, well, you know, well, how do I do that? We want someone to walk us through, hold our hand and walk us through discipline. Discipline is a diligent inter-attribute that's developed over time. And so if you can't get up, you put your alarm clock on the other side of the room.

So you have to get out of bed to go turn it off and make it as loud as it can possibly be. And once you turn it off, you can't go back to bed. You go immediately to your shower, okay? So now you're wide awake. And you set an early 15 minutes every day, 15 minutes for this week, another 15 minutes the next week. Next thing you know, by the end of the month, you're getting up an hour earlier from six o'clock to five o'clock. You want to get up earlier? So you do the same thing the next month. So you're up at four o'clock instead of five o'clock.

It works perfectly every single time. Get up, get your work done, go to work, get home, get to bed, repeat. It's a discipline. It's all it is. And Paul says, this is what you got to do. But David was idle. Idleness led to laziness. Laziness led to carelessness. Carelessness led to lustfulness. Lustfulness led to foolishness. Foolishness led to stubbornness. Stubbornness led to fearlessness, which led to lawlessness, which led to covetousness, which led to shamelessness, which led to deceitfulness.

Or you just follow the text. Just follow the text straight down. Now, when evening came, David arose from his bed and walked around the roof, careless. You're only careless if you're lazy. If you're idle, you'll become lazy. If you're lazy, you're going to become careless. He walked around on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof, he saw a woman bathing. From carelessness to what? Lustfulness. He saw a woman, Bathsheba. She started bathing. And the woman was very beautiful in appearance.

So, verse 3, David sent and inquired about the woman. Foolishness. Foolishness. Why? And once said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? Foolishness. But foolishness leads to stubbornness. And so what do you do? Go get her. She's stubborn. It's another man's wife. I'm the king. Go get her. Stubbornness. So, David sent messengers and took her. When she came to him, he lay with her. Fearlessness. No fear of God before his eyes. That fearlessness led to lawlessness, as if there was no law before his eyes.

And when she had purified herself from her uncleanness, she returned to her house. Hey, it's okay. It was just a one-night stand. You come. We'll sleep. You go home. But that lawlessness led to covetousness. He wanted Uriah's wife. And that covetousness led to shamelessness and deceitfulness. He deceived her husband. He ended up breaking every one of the Ten Commandments in the sin of Bathsheba, the great king of Israel. Why? One reason. Lazy. Idleness leads to laziness. Laziness leads to carelessness.

Carelessness will move you further and further down the road to lustfulness, to stubbornness, to sinfulness, to lawlessness. You name it. It's like a domino effect. That's what happened to David. It's no wonder Paul says to the lazy man, to the one who can't rule his spirit, to the one who can't discipline his life, Go to work. Fulfill your responsibility. Get it done. This is what the Lord Jesus says.

Do not be lazy. Go to work. Why? Because you're involved in protecting the testimony of your church. Right? The ministry of your church. So Paul gives this exhortation. Then he gives an example. Look at this.

He says, for you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. This is such a good thing. Because if you read 1 Thessalonians chapter 2, it talks about how his example was one. He repeats it over and over again. And you know, as you already know, as you saw in us, we gave you a model. We gave you an example. Why did he do that? Because you see, Paul knew that he was given gifts from Philippi and gifts from Corinth. He didn't need to work to buy food. But he knew he needed to work to show the people in the church a model of a good work ethic.

A model, an example on how they should live their lives. And that's exactly what he did. He says, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you. And we could have. He says, nor did we eat anyone else's bread without paying for it. We didn't come and say, hey, thanks for having us over for a meal. And hey, can we be at your house tomorrow night? Hey, how about your house the next night? Okay? He wasn't doing that. He was paying for the meals. He was giving them money because they were feeding him.

They were feeding Silas. These men were being fed. So he paid for it. But with labor and hardship, we kept working night and day. So we would not be a burden to any of you. He didn't want to be a burden. Not because we do not have the right to this, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you, so that you would follow our example. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat either. You don't work. You don't eat. It's just that simple.

You got to work to eat. And Paul makes it very clear. So he gives them an exhortation. He gives them an example. And then he gives them an encouragement in verse 11. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to work in quiet fashion and to eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary of doing good. Here's the encouragement. Listen, you need to be the kind of people who lead a disciplined life.

And don't grow weary in doing good. For those of you who are working and you're wondering about all these others who are not working, keep working, keep at it. And at the same time, keep dealing with them because you're living an unruly life. Don't grow weary in doing the right thing. Keep doing the right thing. Keep being disciplined. Keep being obedient. Keep following through on what you're supposed to be doing. Let me encourage you.

And then he gives them this empowerment. He says, if anyone does not obey your instruction in this letter, take special note of that person. In other words, don't mix together with that person and do not associate with them, so that he will be put to shame. A person who's not willing to listen to the instruction of the word of God needs to live in isolation. We think that when someone's sinning, we need to come alongside of them and continue to minister them in their sin. No. If someone is unrepentant, they are to be in isolation, so that they are able to feel the full weight of their sin.

Because if you aid and abet them in an unrepentant state, you are part and parcel to that unrepentant state. You are assisting them to keep living an unrepentant life. But isolation, separating from them, is something that helps them understand. They need to get right with the Lord. That's why he says this. Yet do not regard him as an enemy. He's not your enemy, but admonish him as a brother. In other words, warn him as a brother. Instruct him as a brother. Correct him as a brother. Advise him as a brother.

But don't get mixed up in our love feasts. Don't be having him over for dinner because that just helps him not to keep working. The last thing you want to do to a guy who doesn't work is to invite him to your house for dinner so he doesn't work anymore. You want to make sure he feels the full brunt of his isolation. Does it mean you don't love him? Why? Leviticus 17 and 11. Remember Leviticus 17 and 11? I think sometimes we forget this. I'm sorry, Leviticus 19 and 17. My bad. You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart.

You may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. If you love your brother, you will reprove your brother. If you hate your brother, you won't say anything about him or to him. You just let him continue to live in sin. But we think that's loving our brother. See? We think that's being tolerant. We think that's being long-suffering. Oh no. Long-suffering is rebuking them in their sin because you love them enough to confront them on their disobedience to the authority of God's Word in their life.

Because you live according to that same authority over in the book of Ephesians, the sixth chapter. Paul says these words, Ephesians chapter 6, Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service as men pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart with goodwill, render service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free.

Your service is always to the Lord. It's not to your employer. It's to the Lord. And when it's to the Lord, your employer will reap the benefits. And so will you. Because people say, you know, I just, I can't find the right job. As if somehow, if I find the right, the right job, I'll have joy. Not knowing that I'm supposed to bring joy to my job. I think that if I find the right service, I'll be satisfied. Not realizing that I'm to bring satisfaction to my service. I bring everything to the marketplace.

I bring it to the job. That's what I do. I come as a believer of the Lord Jesus Christ, a representative of the kingdom of God, and I come to bring Christ to you. I come to bring the gospel to you. I come to bring the Lord Jesus Christ to you. I'm bringing meaning to the marketplace. That's the greatness about our jobs. It's the greatness about where God brings us. And so Paul says, look, these people who are unruly and undisciplined, they're really not the problem. The problem is, if you don't deal with them in that state, that's where the problem's going to arise in your church.

And so many times, we think of a lazy life, an undisciplined life, as just no big deal, but it is. And I wish I had time just to take you through more of the book of Proverbs and more of the Old Testament, where people were negligent in their responsibility, negligent in their duty, just because they were tired, and they wanted to be idle. They wanted to sit back and a little sleep, a little folding of the hands, a little rest, a little nap. You say, well, Pastor, you're saying we can't ever nap?

My mom would say you can't ever nap. My dad would say the exact same thing, okay? I'm not saying you can't ever nap. I'm not saying that. Okay? Get the rest you need to get rest. I'm all for getting rest, right? But don't do it outside the bounds of a disciplined, ordered, ruled life. See? Because it affects everybody you come in contact with. Your undisciplined life, your lazy life, if you go through the book of Proverbs and someone drives by your house, and your yard's a mess, and they open your garage, and your garage is just filled with all kinds of junk, okay?

They draw a conclusion on your life. Did you know that? They draw a conclusion on your life. Someone gets in your car, and it's a filthy mess. They can take their finger and write their name on your dashboard. You've got major issues. You've got major issues. You've got cleanliness issues, or an unwillingness to keep your car clean, right? That's just a normal wipe down. That's not a big deal. That's just a normal dusting, a normal vacuuming. It's just a little thing. You see, the disciplined life is the person who's disciplined in the little things, not the big things.

The reason you're disciplined in the big things is because you tackle the little ones. It's the little things that you tackle every day, right? It's the dirty fork. It's the food on the floor that you pick up. It's the trash that needs to be emptied. It's the task that needs to be done, whether it's watering the plants, mowing the yard, edging the yard, painting the shutters, whatever it may be, right? It's the little things that lead to the huge things. And the reason people are not disciplined in the big things is because they just are not disciplined enough just to even get up in the morning to get things done.

And you've got to get them done. I'm not trying to be hard on you. I'm just trying to let you know that this is important because it affects us as a church because those people you come in contact with every day draw a conclusion about you and your God based on what they see you do or not do. Now, they could be wrong, right, in some instances. It's not that way in every instance. Just because you have a cluttered garage doesn't mean you're an undisciplined, unruly person. I'm not saying that, okay?

I think you need to organize your garage. I think it needs to be organized. And you might say, well, boxes all over the place is organized in my mind. Well, maybe that is, okay? I'm not going to debate you on that fact. But if I ask you to find something, can you find it like that? Or do you have to go searching for it? See? Ask yourself that question. Because everybody is drawing a conclusion based on what they see. And so, if you come to church and your clothes are all wrinkled, did you not have time to iron them?

Did you not have time to iron them because you didn't get up to iron them? Or you didn't prepare on Saturday night to iron them for Sunday morning? That's just a little, small little thing, right? Very tiny little thing. But it leads to real big things. Why? Because you see, that means you were idle someplace. And if you're idle, you're going to be lazy. And if you're lazy, guess what? You're going to become careless. And if you become careless, lawlessness begins to run rampant. Because Satan wants you in neutral.

He wants you in no man's land. Because then he can mess with your mind. Put all kinds of temptations your way and get you to fall off the cliff. Because you were not disciplined enough to even discipline your thought life. See, if you can't discipline the things on the outside, that tells us that you're unable to discipline the things on the inside. You're unable to discipline your mind, your thought life, the things you see, the buttons you push, the TV channels you watch. They all stem from the inside of a man.

Can you discipline those things? See? May God give us the grace to do that. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for tonight. A chance to be in your Word. We pray that we would grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. May we serve you with a willing heart. Like Solomon said, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Ecclesiastes 9 verse number 10. May that be us, Lord. We pray in your name. Amen.