(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Now the part of the check that I want to focus on in Luke 17 is actually beginning in verse number 7 where the Bible reads, But which of you having a servant plowing or feeding cattle will say unto him by and by when he is coming from the field, Go and sit down to me, and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may stop, and gird thyself, and serve me till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink. Luke 17 9, Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded of him? I trod not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded of you, say, We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which it was our duty to do. Now tonight I want to preach about the subject of basically how you should be as a worker. Succeeding in business, succeeding at the work that God has for you. Now you say, Why is this important? Well, all the way back to Genesis, God told Adam that he would work by the sweat of his face all the days of his life until he went back to the dust from whence he was taken. And so God has ordained for us as men, and I guess I'm preaching primarily to the men tonight, He's ordained us as men to live a life characterized by work. Work is a big part of our life. We spend most of our time throughout the week, week in and week out, working. And we work by the sweat of our face. That's what our life is all about. God made thorns grow up on the ground. God has created a world that we live in that requires a lot of hard work. In order to pay the bills, in order to feed our family, that's what our lot is in life as men. Now, a lot of people today are struggling because of the fact that the economy is so bad. And jobs are few and far between. A lot of people, their job is cutting their hours, their job is laying people off, letting people go. Other people own a business, their business is suffering. And so now, more than ever, you need to know what the Bible teaches. And there's a lot of Bible that I'm going to preach tonight. There's a lot of Bible on this subject. You need to know more than ever now what the Bible teaches about how you should be on the job. What kind of a worker you should be, even if you own your own company. What your work ethic should be like, and how hard of a worker you should be. You see, I firmly believe that the Christian should be the best worker on the job. I mean, if you have a bunch of unbelievers, if you have a bunch of people who are not saved, they don't read the Bible, they should not be outworking you on the job. They should not be there, and they're the ones that are working harder, and you're lazy, you're a slacker. No, we ought to be the best that we can be. The Bible says, therefore whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. We ought to be giving it our best on the job, and be the hardest worker. It ought to be like in Daniel chapter 1, where Nebuchadnezzar had all the worldly teenagers, and then he had Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and he found them to be ten times better. Ten times better of a student, ten times better in their understanding of science, and language, and wisdom that he taught them in the Chaldean ways. We ought to be the best that we can possibly be, and Christians who have the Bible teaching them ought to be the best workers that there are. And so we're going to start right here with the concept that's taught here in Luke 17. Right here in Luke 17 in verse 10, he says, so likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do. You see, the first thing that you want to know if you want to succeed at work, if you want to be succeeding when everybody else is getting laid off, if you want to be able to find a job, and keep that job, and be able to make enough money to support your family, and to take care of your needs. I'm not talking about being rich. The first thing that you need to know is that you need to be willing to go above and beyond your job description. He said right here, if you just do the minimum, if you just do what's required of you, and then you expect the boss to thank you, he said, do you think that the master thanks the servant just because he did what he was told? He said, I throw not. That means I think not. He said, no. You've got to do something extra if you want to be thanked. If you want to excel on the job, you've got to go above the job description, not just do the minimum. Matthew 5.41 says this, you don't have to turn there, and whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Go in the extra mile. When you're asked to do something, do more. Do better. Don't just do the minimum. Some people have this philosophy, their job is 9 to 5. They're going to clock in at 8 o'clock in 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Because God forbid that they work an extra 10 seconds or an extra 30 seconds. And then boom, when that whistle blows at 5 o'clock, they're running all day long. They work just kind of dragging along, doing their job. But then it's just, the whistle blows, it's like, what? Why can't you work like that? All of a sudden you just sprint out of the car, people are peeling out, screeching their tires, on the gas, fighting each other to get to the exit. Everybody's just out of there. That's not the attitude we should have about our job. Love your job. Learn to love work. You say, my job is not spiritual like your job is, because my job's not spiritual. I pass to the church, yes, because I work a full-time job. I turn the screwdriver. I do fire alarm, I pull a wire. That's why Victor went out to work with me one day. And he said, I've always heard you in your sermons, talk about how you turn the screwdriver. And he's like, I didn't know you really literally turned a screwdriver. He's watching, I'm like, yeah, see? I wasn't just a figure of speech. I'm out there working the job, pulling wire, but you've got to learn to love work. If you're a man, you've got to love work. People who don't love work, they're lazy. People who say, oh, I'm just waiting for the weekend. Hey, how you doing today? Oh, it's Monday. No, you know, learn to love work. God created you not to play. God created man to work. And so learn to love work. And don't just try to do the minimum all the time. Or this attitude, and this is encompassed in the same scripture in Luke 17, this attitude that says, well, I'm not going to do that. That's somebody else's job. That's not my job. You know, you're not going to clean the toilet, or you're not going to clean the bathroom, or sweep the floor, because you're too good for that. You know, this is my position, and you see people stand around. It's like, wait, do this, do that. No, that's not my job. It's not my job description. I always tell people, whenever I work with people, whenever I've hired employees that work for me, I always tell them this. I say, if you're on the job, and they want you to unclog the toilet, I'll do it. I'm serious. I mean, I've been on a job before, and I own my own business. So I was out at this job, and I was putting in the fire alarm system, and they said, hey, since you have a big ladder out, can you just put in these fluorescent light bulbs while you're here? You know, no, that's not my job. I'm not an electrician. I just do fire alarms. I just said, sure. You know, I was already up there anyway. I said, yeah, sure. You know, I change a couple light bulbs. It has nothing to do with what I do. I do fire alarm systems. I climbed up, changed the light bulbs, and you know what? The lady handed me a $20 bill, and then she handed me a gift for my wife, because this was at a Hallmark store. She handed me a gift, said, here's a Christmas gift for your wife. Here's $20. You see, the Bible says, in all labor, there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Work. Just whatever work there is, just do it. I showed up at another job, and we were told that it was the fire alarm that was bad. I got there. Nothing to do with the fire alarm. Nurse call system. I just said, well, I'll see if I can fix it. It's not even what we do, but I fixed it, and made it work, and got paid, and made more money by doing it. You know, and I've literally fixed somebody's plumbing before. You know, on a job. And I'm not a plumber. I can't even fix my own plumbing. You know, my pipes were leaking this morning, and we had to call a plumber and all that. But you've just got to learn to just do the work that you're basically hired to do, and then do a little bit extra. That's the only way you're going to excel. And then let me tell you something. When they're laying people off, you're the one who's not going to get laid off. When they're letting everybody go, and they're firing people because they have to downsize because of the economy, you think they're going to downsize the guy who gets there early, stays late, works twice as hard as everybody else, and doesn't say, oh, that's not my job? No, just whatever it is, just give me work to do. I mean, I don't care if you want me to sweep the floor, clean the toilet, you know, you want me to do electrical, you want me to do plumbing? You know, it doesn't always just say, oh, I don't know how to do that. Somebody who just does what they're told, and then goes a little bit beyond and does extra, that's the guy who's going to succeed. That's what the Bible calls a profitable servant. He said a servant who does the minimum is an unprofitable servant who just does his duty, and that's it. Just a minimum requirement to get that paycheck. No, the servant that's profitable goes above and beyond. Look at Ephesians, chapter 6. Ephesians, chapter 6, about halfway through the New Testament, and we'll continue along the same line of thought here. In Ephesians 6, beginning in verse number 5, and let me tell you something, this is an important sermon, because a lot of your life has to do with how good of a worker you are, because you're not going to go very far in life if you can't succeed on your job. If you can't hold a job, if you're switching from job to job or getting laid off all the time, you're not going to be able to go very far in life, because, let's face it, you need some basic things. You need some basic money and tools to get you through life and to have wife, to have children. And so look at Ephesians 6, verse 5, it says, Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. Now look, here we see not only obedience to the boss, this is how you're going to succeed at work, not only obedience to the boss, but fear of the boss, fear and trembling, just in case you're not sure what he meant by fear, because you know how people today, they take the Bible and they say it doesn't really mean what it says? They say, well, it says hate, it doesn't really mean hate. When it says all, it doesn't really mean all. Jesus only died for certain people, as the Calvinist teaches. When it says all, it doesn't really mean all, and this is what they often say, fear doesn't really mean fear. How many of you have heard that? All the time, this is a big one. This is probably the most common one. Fear doesn't really mean fear, it just means like only like a reverential all. But they say it's not fear. But wait a minute, then why is it fear ended? Trembling. What does it mean to tremble? Trembling is shaking. Now, I don't think he's literally telling you to just, oh yeah. He's using the word trembling just so that you know that it really means fear. I mean, fear the boss. Look up to the boss. Realize that the boss is the boss. Now, today, we have this attitude that the boss is not the boss. If you look at what he said in Luke 17, you don't have to turn back there, we already read it. But he said, who's going to eat first? The boss or the worker? He said, any of you that has a servant, when he comes out of the field, he's not going to sit down and serve his servant. He's going to tell the servant, bring me to eat, set up my food and drink, and then you eat next. What God's teaching here is that the boss is the one who's in charge. Now, today, people think that it's the boss's job, it's their right, he must provide them employment, and he's going to give them everything, and he's there to make sure that they have everything that they want and that they need, when in reality, the person who works for the company, their goal ought to be to serve the company, to make money for the company. That's why they're working there. The servant is trying to bring a profit to the master. And so when you have a job, your goal is to serve the company, not what can the company serve me, provide me with this, provide me with that. And that attitude is going to make you a better worker when you realize, wait a minute, the company's not here for me. I'm here for the company. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Basically, you're there to make them succeed. They're not there to make you succeed. Basically, you're there to produce something of value that makes the company want you to be there because you're making them money. That's the way it works. You have to get the chain of command right. You got to get the owner and the boss and the manager, they're up here. As the worker, you need to realize, hey, I'm down here, and my job is to please them. Because he says here, servants be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ. And then watch this. Not with eye service, as men pleasers. He says, not just when the boss is looking. That's what eye service means. Not just when he can see you, but he says, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with good will doing service as to the Lord, and not to men. You say, oh, Pastor Anderson, I just want to know the will of God for my life. You know, all these churches and preachers talk about, I've got to know God's will, and I'm trying to figure out God's will. Here's God's will for your life. Go to work and work hard like your boss is Jesus Christ. That's what you got to do. You got to go to work and say, my boss is Jesus Christ, and not say, well, I hate my boss, and oh, there's companies, garbage, and I don't like it, and they're this and they're that. No, you got to go there and say, I'm not working for them. I'm working for God. I'm not working for the manager. I'm working for the Lord. And so I'm going to go the extra mile. I'm going to put in extra time. I'm going to work extra hard and do the will of God from the heart, which means that with good will, I'm doing service to man, but not as to man, as unto the Lord. And watch what he says in verse 8. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. So, according to the Bible, any work that you put in, God's going to reward you for that. Even if your boss rips you off or doesn't pay you right or doesn't pay you the extra work that you did, He says knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. You see, Jacob in the Old Testament, he was a hard worker. I think that's one of the reasons why God blessed him and changed his name to Israel and made him the father of the patriarchs in the nation of Israel, because he was such a hard worker. If you look at him, he was always excelling at work. He was shepherding and basically he caused Laban's business to flourish. He caused all of his herds and his flocks to multiply, but Laban was really ripping him off. The Bible says that Laban had changed his wages ten times, deceived him, ripped him off, basically cutting his pay and not paying him what was coming to him as a worker. And yet, God appeared to Jacob in a dream and told him, I see what Laban's doing to you. And basically what ended up happening is all the wealth of Laban ended up being transferred to Jacob, because God saw Laban ripping him off and God took care of him, because God will always bless you when you work hard. And Jacob, even though he had a boss that was ripping him off and had lied to him, I mean lied to him to the point where he marries one woman. You remember this story? And he ends up marrying someone that he didn't even want to marry, because he claims that he's given his daughter Rachel the wife, which was, you know, the Bible says she was really beautiful and so forth. And then he ends up, you know, in the bedroom and he realizes, hey, this isn't Rachel. This is Leah. Okay? And that was a pretty bad trick to pull on him. Okay? But yet, he still, you know, this is all found in the Book of Genesis. But he was still doing the right thing, working hard, and God ended up blessing him, because people always, I've heard preachers say, like, Jacob was a mama's boy and a wimp. That's not true at all, because let me tell you, if Jacob would have been a mama's boy and a wimp, God would have given him that blessing and that birthright and given him all the blessings. God doesn't give that to a bunch of mama's boys and wimps. And pansies and effeminate? No. No effeminate has any inheritance of the kingdom of God, the Bible says. And so, it wasn't some wimp or a mama's boy, you know, and Esau was a tough guy. No. Jacob was the one, if you remember, when he first met Rachel, he came up to the well and they said, we can't take the stone off the well until all of the shepherds come and then we're all going to lift it off together. And remember, Jacob said, hey, baby. You know? And he basically just walked up and took off the stone by himself. Now, I don't think that's a wimp. He was obviously a strong man. How did he become strong? By working. And he was able to lift the stone off. He impressed her because he could lift the stone off and usually it took a couple of guys to lift it off. So I wouldn't call him a wimp or a mama's boy. He was a hardworking guy. Esau was the profane person and fornicator who God got so fed up with. He said, I hate Esau. It was a pretty strong term for God to use. And so he says in verse number 8, knowing the whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free, and ye masters do the same things unto them. This is talking about the boss himself. Forbearing, threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven, neither is there respect of persons with him. Understand that the boss has a boss also. And here God says that the master, they have a master in heaven, right? They have God above them. So even if your boss is corrupt and he's ripping you off, he has a boss and the head boss will make things right and that's God in heaven that'll make sure that whatsoever man soweth, that shall he also reap. We use that a lot in negative preaching. But that also goes for the positive. I mean, if you work hard, if you sow and work hard, God will cause you to reap what you've sown. And if you work hard, you will reap the wages that you earned. It's not just negative that when you sin, you will reap what you've sown, you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. You also work hard, work hard, and you'll get paid for it. Let's go to Proverbs and see many, many, many verses from Proverbs about this. Proverbs is probably the book that talks the most about this. And the reason why is because the purpose of the book of Proverbs, as enumerated in chapter 1, is to give the young man wisdom. And young men, they don't automatically have a hard work ethic. I know that this is what I struggle with. You know, you first go into the workforce when you're a teenager. My first job was round table pizza, besides working for my dad in the electrical business. I did that a lot growing up. But my first job, my first real job, or actually not a paycheck, and this is my first real job, was round table pizza. And I remember it just seemed so hard. You know, I'd go there, that three-hour shift, oh man, you know, it was long. And you know, I think I grew up a little bit lazier than most. I mean, I grew up just in front of the TV, in front of a video game. I used to sit down and turn on a movie, and I'd get out a tub of raspberry sherbet, half down, and just eat the whole thing in one sitting in front of that TV. And I'm not kidding. I mean, this was just a common occurrence. And I mean, I would just sit around and loaf. But that's the way a lot of kids are growing up these days. That's the way I grew up. You sit in school all day. You get home, and it's Nintendo, Sega Genesis. I mean, not that anybody uses those anymore. But you know, I'd just plop down and just relax and everything like that. And then in the summer, you know, maybe ride bicycles a little bit, go off some jumps, get on some dirt bikes. But you know, it just wasn't really a hard-working culture that I grew up in. And my dad, he's very successful at what he does, but he's very effortlessly successful. I think he works probably about two hours a day at his job, and he makes good money, but he only works a couple hours a day. And so I just didn't really grow up with just a kind of mentality of working really long and hard days. And I remember I'd go to a round table, and man, it seemed hard. And it was a really strict round table. It was the most successful round table in the whole area. And you know, you'd work hard, and the eight-hour shift just seemed like it went on forever and so forth. But it's something that you have to work at because I remember coming to a point, even after I was married, and I'd been married for a while, I remember coming to a point where I just went to God and I just said, God, I'm lazy. I said, I'm just going to confess it as a sin to you right now. I'm lazy. I don't like going to work. You know, it's grueling to me. I just told God, I said, God, I know I should be working harder than I'm working. And I'm just not working that hard. This is just something that I need help with. And I just prayed to God. I said, God, please help me to learn to work hard. Help me to get over my laziness. One thing he did for me to help me was when I went to Germany, because I was with this one guy in Germany. Man, did I have to work hard. I had to work 75 hours a week hard labor, like literally swinging a sledgehammer, operating a jackhammer, this kind of just hard, breaking rocks like a prisoner, okay? 75 hours a week. I'm not kidding. I mean, it worked hard. And that helped me out, but then I got a job that basically was very demanding and it started to learn. And God just worked through a lot of circumstance in my life and taught me how to work hard. But what I'm trying to say is that at least I recognize the problem. I recognize the problem for what it was. And I went to God and I confessed it as a sin to God and God has helped me to become a hard worker and to love work and to work hard and to get a lot done. And so this is something that God can help you with and God's got the answers in the Bible as well. Why don't we start in Proverbs chapter 18? We're just going to go through a ton of scriptures in Proverbs. We're just going to be flipping all over the place in Proverbs and get some wisdom. But see, it's for the young man because the young man is not naturally a hard worker and you, young man, have to learn how to work hard. Pray that God will make you a hard worker and then get these scriptures and let them teach you how to work hard. Look what it says in Proverbs 18 verse 9. The Bible reads, He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. Part of being a hard worker is basically understanding the value of money. Now, when you understand the value of money and you don't throw it around and waste it and squander it, you're going to be a harder worker and you're going to actually appreciate your money because you work hard for it and you understand the value of it. One of the things that will do this for you is getting married. When you're a young single guy, you have an excess of money. And because you just have an excess of money because you're just living at home and the only thing you're really saving up for is just another ticket to great America, you know, another bag of potato chips, another pizza with your friends, okay? And so you don't really have to work hard. When you get married and all of a sudden funds are tight, because let me tell you something, living in 2009, being married, having children is not cheap. It's very difficult. It's almost impossible for a person with one income, you know, a family with one income to make it, but with God, all things are possible. If you want to work hard, it is possible. I thank God that my wife doesn't work and never will thank God except the work that she does at the home. But that's not easy today. You're going to need God's help with this. You're going to need God's help to make the money necessary to be able to work hard and do it. Look if you would at verse number, let's flip back to actually chapter 13. Proverbs chapter 13. Proverbs chapter number 13. The Bible says in Proverbs 13, 11, wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he that gathereth by labor shall increase. Look at Proverbs 14, 23. This is one that I touched on earlier. In all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Now this reminded me of in 2 Thessalonians when he said that with quietness, they work and eat their own bread. You see, you don't want to be the type of person who's just talking all the time instead of working. Now this is one thing that people can have a tendency to do. Have you ever seen people on a job and they start talking and then they slow down on what they're doing and the productivity slows down? I'm thinking of my children right now. You tell them to do something, really even to something simple, tie your shoe. And between every lace, and they don't get it done in four times as long because they're talking, running their mouth, talking, talking. The Bible says with quietness, work and eat your own bread. He said here, in all labor there is profit, but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. Let me just break it to you. If you're on your cell phone the whole time you're working, texting, emailing, you're checking your Facebook every five minutes in between whatever you're doing on the computer, you're not giving it 100% of your job. When everything is chit chat, when you're getting up and going to the water cooler, you've got to just buckle down and work hard and get rid of some of the distractions and not just talk and chat and text and email. You've got to just buckle down and work. The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury. You know what penury means? Poverty. Penury means you're a pauper, you're poor. Look if you would at chapter six. Here's a famous passage. Proverbs chapter six. Proverbs chapter six, verse six. The sluggard. I love the word sluggard because it's the word that God uses to describe a lazy person and it comes from the word slug. Now think about a slug. Would you like to be compared as a worker? What kind of a worker is Chris? Have you ever seen a slug in the garden? That's about how he works. That's a pretty bad comparison. You know how slugs are. They move really slow. And this is the way some workers are. They move slowly. Everything is just slow and they're always tired and they just move slowly. No, we have to move quickly. We have to work hard and not be a sluggard. That's what God defines a lazy person as. The sluggard. Now look what he says in Proverbs 6. Go to the ant, thou sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise. Have you ever seen ants on the other end? They're fast. Ants are extremely fast. They're all just moving around and everything. That's how you ought to look on your job. God says look at an ant. That's how you ought to be on your job. Consider her ways and be wise. Verse number 7. Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest. Here's the next way to succeed on your job. Don't always have to have somebody looking over your shoulder. I've explained this to so many people. I explain to them that there's two kinds of workers. There's the ones that have to be supervised and there's the ones who supervise themselves. The ones who have to be supervised, they get paid a very low wage. And then there's somebody over them supervising them that gets paid a high wage. But the person who can supervise themselves that doesn't need a guide or an overseer or a ruler standing over them all day telling them exactly what to do, they can be paid a much higher wage because they don't need a supervisor. They don't need a manager. They can get it done without somebody holding their hand and babysitting them. And so he says, and this kind of goes back to the same thing about not serving with eye service as men pleasers. When the boss isn't around, you don't have to have somebody there holding your hand, watching you in order for you to work hard. It says the ant has no guide, overseer or ruler, and yet provided her meat in the summer and gathered her food in the harvest. How long wilt thou sleep, O slugger? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep so shall thy poverty come as one that travelth and thy want as an armed man. Here he's saying that even a little bit too much sleep can bring you into poverty. You've got to get off this thing where you love sleep. The Bible says love not sleep. This is chapter 20, verse 13. You'll have to turn it. Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty. Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. If you'll stay up long enough, if you'll get up early and work all day long and go to bed late, you'll be satisfied with bread. You'll be able to survive like that. You'll be able to make the money that you need if you'll work hard and not sleep too much. Today, there are people who sleep too much. Nine, 10, 11 hours a day, they're sleeping. Then they've got to take a nap. Let me teach you something. The more that you sleep, the more you'll need to sleep. The more that you rest, the tireder you'll get. It's true. It doesn't make any sense, but it's true. You'll find that when you just work hard and don't rest, it's work, work, work, work, work, you'll renew your strength, like the Bible says. You'll get your second wind. I've noticed that the people who have the most energy are the people that are working the most and resting the least. It's true. I find that when I have some easy weeks, I have less energy. I'm more tired than the ones where I'm just running around and go, go, go, go, go. I'm actually less tired. I actually have more energy. And so sleep can become a vicious cycle where you're sitting around, you're laying around, and you just get more and more lazy instead of working and working and working. I've noticed this too. There are three kinds of people in this world. There are those who have no job, there are those who have one job, and there are those who have two jobs. And the person with no job is usually the busiest person, like if you want to try to get them to do something, like, oh, I can't make it, you know, I'm doing this or I'm doing that. And then the person with one job, they're usually pretty busy too. And I've heard people say this. If you want something done, give it to somebody who's too busy to do it because they'll get it done faster than the guy who has no job. The guy who has no job, he doesn't have time to do any work because he's so busy in his unemployed status. Okay, but it's true. And I noticed this too. I've gone through periods where I didn't have a job for a couple of weeks. When I was a teenager, I didn't need the money. You know, I got back from Germany, decided I'll wait a couple of weeks before I start my job. I've had times when I had no job. I've had times when I had one job, and I've had times when I had two jobs. And I was always about the same busy whether I had no job, one job, or two jobs. So I decided I might as well just have two jobs all the time because I'm the same busy and yet I get a lot more money at the end of the week. So, you know, I might as well work 75 hours because if you work 75 hours or 40 hours or 20 hours, you're pretty much the same amount busy, I've noticed. Because I'll tell you why. When you work 75 hours, your time's more precious to you and you budget it all and you get more bang for your buck out of your time off. Whereas when you're working 40 hours or 20 hours, you wind up wasting a lot of time. You end up sleeping more, you end up sitting around more and all. And I'm not saying you shouldn't sleep in a healthy amount. I don't think that's what God's saying. I'm sure God wants you to get a healthy amount of sleep so you can work your best. But don't be the person who loves sleep and who just sleeps and sleeps. Let me just read it again. How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou rise out of sleep? Yet a little slumber, a little sleep, a little folding of the hands to sleep, so shall thy poverty come as one that travels and I want as an armed man. Look at Proverbs 24. Almost the same thing, but a little bit different. Look at Proverbs 24, verse 30. And I realize I'm preaching mainly to the men tonight, but there is a scripture on this for women and it's in Proverbs 31, where it talks about the virtuous woman. And in that sermon on the virtuous woman, it says, clearly it says, She worketh willingly with her hands about the virtuous woman. It says, She riseth also while it is yet night and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her babe. So, according to the Bible, women should be hard workers too, you know? In their position as homemaker, wife, mother, they should be getting up early and working hard and working with their hands. The Bible says she strengthened their arms. You know, she's cooking, she's cleaning, she's not sitting on the couch with ice cream in front of the soap operas and her husband comes home, you know, hey, what's for dinner, you know? Take me out to dinner, you know? Hey, what's for dinner, you know? Oh, it's in the freezer, you know? Hungry man tonight. I got you the big one, you know? Oh, cool, thanks. So, and by the way, guys, if you're looking for a girl to marry, if you're dating, look for a hardworking girl because that's what God tells you to look for in Proverbs 31. Most of the positive attributes, besides, you know, purity and righteousness and God, it's all have to do with being a hard worker. You want to be married to someone who's lazy and women, you dead sure don't want to be married to a lazy man. That's really going to mess up your life. But what about your turn, Proverbs 31? But what about your turn, Proverbs 24? Look at verse 30. Flip over if you would to chapter 19, Proverbs 19. The Bible says in Proverbs 19, verse number 15. Slothfulness. Now, somebody help me out with this. I'm not a biology expert. Isn't a sloth an animal as well? Yes. What is it? Can somebody explain? I heard some of the three-toed sloth and the two-toed. Somebody explain to me what a sloth is. Help me out with this. It's an animal. Is it a rat? Is it an insect? Is it a reptile? Marsupial. Well, then I'll go to my guy from Australia here. What is it? Does that sound right? Does that sound? Okay, I need you to get two or three witnesses here. Can I get a witness? So, it's like a slow-moving, monkey-looking marsupial. Does that mean that it carries its young in a pouch? What? Marsupial? You're like kangaroo or whatever? So, the sloth. Again, God's using an animal type of a word here, like sluggard and the slothful man. Okay, he's using these undesirable animals to describe people who don't know how to work. Slothfulness cast it into a deep sleep. So, what does that mean? Stop and think about that. Laziness makes you tired. Are you getting this? Let's read it again. Slothfulness cast it into a deep sleep. So, laziness makes you tired, okay? So, people are just always tired, always tired. Now, there could be other reasons for that. Some of it's your diet. Quit eating all the junk food, McDonald's, Burger King, Jack in the Box, all the soda. That's making you tired also, I'll tell you right now. But also, laziness can make you tired. You get in there, you work hard, eat quality foods, you're going to get the energy that you need. Fruits and vegetables, real food, not all this synthetic kind of stuff. Let me tell you, that synthetic food will make you tired. It's not in the Bible because I, you know, well, it's in there. I preached a whole sermon about food and what you should eat. But let me tell you this. I know from experience when I end up breaking down and eating junk food because I'm in the middle of nowhere and I can't find anything decent to eat and I'm finally just fine. I never go to McDonald's or anything like that. But I, you know, I go to something that's along those lines, okay? And I've noticed that when I eat it, it makes me tired. I've noticed that when I drink a big soda, you know, you might get a little bit of a sugar rush at first, but you know what? It's going to make you tired. You can't drive all night on a bunch of sodas and junk food. You've got to eat fruits, vegetables, juice, I mean good, healthy foods, water. That's what's going to keep you awake. But not only that, the slothfulness casts into a deep sleep recording this. Laziness will make you tired. And a lot of people today, they're just tired. How you doing? I'm tired, I'm tired. Who knows? Am I the only person who's been around people like this? Am I the only person who's been around people like this? Put up your hand if you've been to work and everybody's just tired all the time. Every day they're tired. That's not normal. Do you think God just created us to just sleep eight hours a night and then the whole day just... Ugh, I'm so tired. Ugh, what time is it? Ugh, it's 2 o'clock, you know, I'm so tired. You need to perk up, sit on a nail or something. You'll be so tired. And you know, by the way, when you do something, you'll be so tired. When you're working, you won't get tired. Like, I've noticed this. My most common all-nighter that I have to do is an all-night drive. And an all-night drive, and I drive all night, sometimes once a week. But at least once every couple weeks, I do like an all-night drive. And let me tell you something, all-night drives are hard to stay awake because you're not doing anything. You're just sitting there. And you just drive and you drive and you drive. But let me tell you, all the times that I've worked all night, where I was actually installing a fire alarm all night, pulling wire, it's easy to stay awake. You notice? Because you're working physically. It's a lot easier to stay awake. Sitting around, you say, oh, I'm so tired at my job all the time. Get up and do something. Work. Get something done. Sweep the floor. And if there's nothing to do at your job, don't just stand there. Sweep the floor. Wash something. Wipe something down. Find some project. I mean, there's always some piece of furniture you can pull out and clean behind it or do something. And your boss will probably have a heart attack and say, what are you doing? I'm doing some extra work. And you know what? That's where you're going to be seen as, man, that's a hard worker. Let's hang on to him. Let's keep him. And that's what you want. You want to succeed at your job. And you know what? It's a good testimony as a Christian, by the way. When they look at you and say, hey, wait a minute. We got five people working for us. And the one who just works the hardest, has the best attitude, doesn't have an attitude. My name is Jimmy. I'll take all you give me. Me, me, me. But has an attitude that says, what can I do for the company? What's going to make the company succeed? I want to make the company money. Let me tell you something. When you make the company money, you'll make money. But when you're just trying to take, take, take, you're not going to succeed like that. But when you're like that and they say, wait a minute. This guy's a Christian. This guy's one of those fundamental Baptists. He's one of these Bible-believing Christians that's zealous, that's a fanatic. And then they see these other four. One of them goes to some grace nom-to-nom, grace, community, water of life, watered-down fellowship. And, you know, he's not working hard. You know, why don't you have the testimony for Christ? Not be the guy on the job who's lazy, who's always tired, and oh yeah, and he goes to faithful word Baptist. Pastor Anderson. You know what I mean? Typical. I mean, is that really how you want to represent being a Christian? No. You want to be the guy who's working hard with the good testimony. It'll give you the opportunity to give people the gospel and have them listen to you because they say, hey, wait a minute. Here's a guy who actually practices what he preaches. Look at verse 16. Actually, finish verse 15. Slothfulness casts into a deep sleep and an idle soul shall suffer hunger. What is an idle soul? Somebody who's not doing anything. On Monday, do something. Tuesday, do something. And you say, well, I don't have a job. This is how you find a job. You spend as much time looking for a job as you want to work on that job. How many hours do you want at your new job? 40 hours. So you spend two hours a day looking for a job? And this is what most people do. They spend like two or three hours a day looking for a job for a 40-hour-a-week job. Look, if you're going to work at the job for 40 hours, look for the job for 40 hours. Doesn't that make sense? Let me put it to you this way. Here's your motto. If I don't have a job, then looking for a job is my job. Okay? And I'm going to work at it 40 hours a week. You won't stay unemployed like that. If you spend 40 hours a week looking for a job, you will find a job, period. Okay? It might take you a little while, but you'll find it if you put in that kind of time. So it says, the idle soul shall suffer hunger. And by the way, my mom used to tell me when I was a kid, an idle mind is the devil's workshop. Because when people are idle, they sit around and they get into trouble. Remember when David was idle, just walking around on top of the roof? That's where he spotted a woman and committed adultery with Bathsheba because he wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing. He was just sitting around idle, wasting time. So the idle soul shall suffer hunger. He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul, but he that despiseth his ways shall die. He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and now which he hath given will he pay him again. Verse 17 again expresses the fact that God's up in heaven rewarding those who work and who give and who do things for others. God will reward you for anything that you do in this life. Chasing thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. I just wanted to read that verse. It has nothing to do with the story. Look at Proverbs 20, verse 13. Proverbs 20, verse 13. It's a good verse. Proverbs 20, verse 13 says, Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty. Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. Have you ever had somebody tell you, I just love to sleep? I love sleep. Put up your hand if you guys. I've had somebody, I've had people say, Oh, I just love sleeping. That's not the highlight of my life. Oh, I can't wait to just go to bed and go to sleep. Now, my kids, this is like their life verse, okay? Because kids all hate to go to bed. You know what I mean? They, you have to fight them to go to bed. It's almost like they're dying every night when they go to bed. You know, it's like, and you're just like, and then I, my son literally said the other day, a few weeks ago, But I didn't play enough today. I didn't get to play enough at all. You know, he's crying, you didn't get to play enough. And you know, you gotta fight him, you gotta go to bed. You're just trying to tell him that in the morning, it's all gonna be the same. The same boys will be there, food, whatever. You know, but we as adults tend to say, Oh, just get me to bed. You know, I just wanna go to sleep. You gotta just get out there and work. Don't waste your life. Do something. You know, sleep what's necessary. Eat what's necessary. Don't just gorge yourself with food and indulge yourself in huge amounts of sleep or laying off. You know, you sleep for eight hours and then you gotta kind of wake up gradually. You know? You kind of move from the bed to the sofa. It's kind of step one. You move from the bed to the sofa and then you gotta kind of wake up slowly. It's like my daughter Miriam. She kind of has to wake up slowly. She wakes up and then I have to pick her up and take her out of the bed and take her to the sofa even. And then she wakes up and goes, Oh, wow. You know what? When I became a man, I put away childish things. Okay, and so we need to be men. When the alarm goes off, you get up, you get going, you get out of sleep. You know, sleep, however much you need to sleep. Not everybody requires the exact same amount of sleep. Some people can do it with less than others. Some people do it with a little more. You know, you just get out of bed, you get going, you do something, you spend time doing something. And if you don't have any work to do, find some work to do. Even around the house, if you have a day off, just work. Just get things done. Don't sit around. Go soloing. You know, do something. But he says in verse number 2013, Love not sleep, lest thou come to poverty. Open thine eyes, and thou shalt be satisfied with bread. Let's just look at one place and then we'll close the sermon. Let's turn to 2 Thessalonians. 2 Thessalonians chapter number 3. 2 Thessalonians chapter number 3. And you know, this maybe isn't the most exciting, dynamic, life-changing sermon you've ever heard. But honestly, if you're a lazy person, or if you're not succeeding at your job, or maybe you're starting a new job, this could transform your life. Majorly. If you'd actually get ahold of this and put it into practice. Because it's easier said than done. But you know what? If you want to succeed in life, you're going to have to succeed at work if you're a man. Because that's what most of your life consists of. Work. Whether you're a pastor, whether you're an electrician, whether you're a plumber, whether you're at construction work, whatever it is, most of your life is about work, men. Let's face it. We live as men and our main pursuit is work. And so how you do at your work is going to have a big impact on who you are as a person. And so this is a crucial sermon for you to get this down and do it. I'll read for you 1 Thessalonians 2-9 and then we'll be at 2 Thessalonians 3-6. For ye remember, brethren, our labor and travail, for laboring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God. Paul's saying that when they kicked the Thessalonica, they worked day and night to pay their own way. They said we didn't want to eat any man's bread for naught, we didn't want to come and be a freeloader. So not only did we preach the gospel, we also worked with our hands day and night to provide our own financial needs. Look at 2 Thessalonians 3-6. Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly and not after the tradition which he received of us. For yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we behave not ourselves disorderly among you. Watch this. Neither did we eat any man's bread for naught. That means we didn't eat it for nothing. We didn't eat it without paying for it. But wrought with labor and travail night and day that we might not be chargeable to any of you. Not because we have not power. He said, look, I could have just come in. I'm a well-known preacher, Paul's saying. I could have come in, and I had the power to just come in and preach and go soul winning and just stay at this house and stay at that house, eat a meal here, eat a meal there. He said it's not that I didn't have the power to do that, but he said in verse 9, but to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us. He's saying, look, I could have come in and just been a full-time preacher. But he said it was so important to me to teach you how to work that I worked night and day and paid my own way just to teach you how to work. I mean, look, you've got to get that from this verse. He says, not because we have not power. He's like, I have the power to do that. But he said, no, it was to make ourselves an example unto you to follow us for even when we were with you. Verse 10, this we commanded you that if any would not work, neither should he eat. Now somebody needs to tell this to the government, by the way. Somebody needs to tell this to the federal government that if any will not work, neither should he eat. You see, before all this communist, socialist garbage that we have in this country, giving everybody free money, free food, free college, free healthcare, and nothing's free. The guy who went and worked hard paid for it, for somebody else to be a freeloader, for some other guy with a gray ponytail down his back getting his fifth college degree on some Pell Grant. You know, come on. I went to junior college. I sat next to these barefooted hippies with their gray ponytails and they're getting like their seventh college degree and they're getting it all subsidized by the government and whatever. It's a bunch of baloney. They're a bunch of freeloaders. They're sitting around, sucking up a paycheck to sit on their rear in some college somewhere and learn a bunch of garbage. Look, somebody needs to tell the government this because before all this commie socialist stuff was around, you know what people did that were poor? The same thing they did in the Bible. They got help from other people's charity, right? Other people willingly helped them, willingly took them under their wing, willingly paid their bill, willingly gave them food or shelter, clothing, whatever. And people today in America, even with the government doing it all for us, people are still generous and help people in need and give donations and give food to the food bank and all this kind of stuff. But you know what the difference is? The difference is that when somebody comes to me that needs help, I only give money or food to people who actually need the help, who are legitimately in need. But the difference is that the government just gives it to anybody. That's the difference. They give it to people who are not willing to work. I mean, there are some people who legitimately need alms. They might be disabled. They might be hurt. They might be lame or blind or deaf or whatever, and they're having trouble functioning because of some kind of an illness or ailment or handicap. They deserve someone to reach out and help them, but it's not the government's job. It's the church. It's Christians. It's human beings to help them. But the difference is that if you think that a church is going to give charity to some able-bodied man who's just not willing to go work, no, the Bible says that if any will not work, neither should he eat. It means starve. You don't want to work? Starve. You don't want to get out of bed? You don't have an alarm clock? You don't even know what an alarm clock is? Starve is what he's saying. And you say, that's harsh. What's harsh? The Bible? It's God's word. How dare you criticize God's word? God said if any would not work, neither should he eat. He said that's what we commanded you. That's what we told you. That's what we believe. You work with quietness and eat your own bread. That means shut up, go to work, and then eat what you earned. Eat what you paid for yourself. But you see, today, there are so many people who are just freeloaders off the government system. And they're the losers too. It's not just us that are losing, that are paying into the whole thing. They're living a miserable life because they've become dependent upon the government. And no man feels like a real man unless he works and he's independent. The government is trying to take our manhood from us. The government is stripping us of our manhood by basically making our taxes so high, making our cost of living so unaffordable that we have to go down and sign up for their programs just to survive. I mean, I literally, I make good money at my job. I'll be honest with you. I make good money in my business, but you know, I could still go down and sign up for free stuff from the government, even with the amount of money that I make. My wife looked at it. She said we could be getting food and eggs and cheese and whatever, a cheaper phone bill. But you know, my manhood just says, man, I don't need that stuff. My manhood just says, man, I'm just gonna do it myself. You know, I just wanna pay my own way, right? But the problem is it's getting to the point where many people are being forced to take this guy just because it's like you can't make it anymore. You know, I'm gonna hang on to my pride as long as I can and keep doing it. But I'm telling you something, the government's taking our manhood from us. And people who live off the government, they don't feel like a man. It hurts their self-esteem. It hurts them as a person because mankind is created to work and build something and to do something himself. And a man is not happy unless he's working. Did you hear that? A man is not happy unless he's working. I've known people unemployed for years and they weren't happy. Now they have a job. Now they work overtime, and now they're happy. Because that's where we belong in life, working. But he said in verse number... I'll finish up quickly here. He says, For we hear, verse 11, that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now then that are such, we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ that with quietness they work and eat their own bread. But ye, brethren, be not weary in well-doing, and then a man obey not our word by this epistle, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed. Yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother. You see, God does not smile on this. I mean, that's a pretty hard statement against those who don't work. He'd say, don't even hang around him. Just note that man and have no company with him. This guy, he's loafing, he's a busybody, he doesn't work. And look, if you don't have a job, maybe you have enough money to not have a job, that's fine, you can still work. You can still go out soul winning, you can still produce something, work for something, but don't be idle, don't sit around. God does not want idlers, he wants hard workers. Labor, travail, these are words that denote very hard work. Labor. What do you think of when you think of a laborer? Somebody who's answering a phone in an office with a pink tie? Is that what you picture when you hear the word laborer? No, you picture somebody who's out working hard and God's saying, hey, labor, work. Toil is another word that he used in the Bible. And we ought to let these things sink down into our ears and you know what, let's not just give it 100% on Sunday, let's give it 100% tomorrow morning on Monday when we get to work. And on Tuesday, let's give it 100%, let's be honest, let's be thorough, let's do a quality job, let's move fast, let's not sit around, and let me tell you something, God bless you for that. He said he'd do it. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.