Some things to consider…

• The dumbest purchase of 2019 was a 2020 planner
• In 2019, you were told to stay away from negative people, but in 2020, you were told to stay away from positive people.
• The phrase I wouldn’t touch him or her with a six-foot pole is now a national ordinance.
• I never thought that I would go into a bank demand and money with a mask on
• Don’t let don’t get worked up over people or things that you can’t change. Because I’m not sure if you heard or not, but there is a chain shortage.

I do want to talk to you about change day today, though, about making a change. I want you to change your laziness into discipline.

Busy-ness does not negate laziness

No-one thinks that they are lazy. Most people don’t, but busy-ness does not negate laziness today, we are going to look at the cause, cost, and cure for laziness.

If you’re not passionate about something, you will never apply yourself to it, you won’t apply yourself to it. Less than 1% of people have a natural ability towards things. Sometimes you have a savant and, they can pick up an instrument or what have you, and just play it by ear and things like that, but less than 1% of people can do that.

The rest of us must apply ourselves. We must practice. We must work at it. We must exercise discipline. We must exercise discipline or else we will never get very good. We will never accomplish anything worthwhile, if we do not exercise discipline in our lives Laziness defined is as an indisposition to action or exertion or a habitual disinclination to action.

Laziness is not defined as not doing anything at all. Laziness is just not applying yourself, to specific things, not applying yourself to things that you just really are not passionate about. You could end up being slothful, that is what the Bible calls you. You can be considered lazy. You say, well, I’m not lazy at work all the time.

Well, you might not be lazy at whatever it is that you are doing for work all the time, but there are other parts and elements within your life that you do exercise laziness. It is those things that I want to key in on here today and help you out with.

The cause of laziness

What is the cause of laziness?

The cause of laziness comes down to this one thing.

Laziness is not the lack of any desires. People think, well when somebody is lazy, it is because they don’t desire anything. The Bible doesn’t teach it that way. The Bible teaches that the slothful has desires, and your laziness has a desire. The issue and, the problem is that your laziness desires to be comfortable It craves comfort.

craving for comfort

That is the cause of your laziness. It’s a craving for comfort. Lazy people make excuses all the time, as we see here in verse number 13, there’s a lion in the streets. There’s a lion in the streets. I can’t go to work. There’s a lion out there. I can’t go to work. It’s cold out there. There’s snow, there’s ice, there’s rain, there’s sunshine, or whatever.

They’re good at making excuses. They don’t want to go, there’s a lion in the street. I don’t have enough time, It’s too cold or hot.  They always have an excuse.

Not enough time in the day. That’s a big excuse, right? There’s just not enough time. There’s a lot of things that I would like to do, but there’s not enough time. Because you want to stay comfortable because you only get 24 hours in a day, but we want to be comfortable.

So we don’t want to push ourselves in order to get more stuff accomplished within that 24 hour period, because that’s not comfortable. It’s more comfortable just to do the bare minimum and have a bunch of leisure time because that’s comfortable. We want to be comfortable.  You don’t want to get up early in the morning cause it’s comfortable underneath those covers.

It’s comfortable in there. It’s nice and warm and toasty.  You start throwing them covers off and you’re like, Ooh, it’s cold out there. I’m just going to keep it in here. It’s comfortable.

15 minutes a day

I don’t know if you know this or not, but if you hit the snooze bar for 15 minutes a day, usually that’s what snooze buttons are set for, 15 minutes, when you hit snooze it sets for 15 minutes later, and then it’s going to go back off again.

Let me share a little fact, a little trivia here, a little mathematical equation if you will.  If you hit the snooze button once a day, that’s 15 minutes, that comes out to 92 hours or 3.8 days you spent in bed, four days, you spend extra in bed doing absolutely nothing. Four days for hitting the snooze button. Once a day, four days, you just wasted four days there. I don’t have time. You just wasted four days and that’s if you hit snooze only once.  

Too Busy

Lazy people are good at making excuses. Verse 14 shows how they say they’re too busy. They’re too busy as a door hinge swings.  As a door hinge, so what does a door hinge do? A door hinge just swings, there’s a lot of movement. It swings open, it swings closed, it swings open, it swings closed, but you know what? It doesn’t go anywhere. It’s really busy. It’s getting a lot of movement going on. There’s a lot of activity, but it doesn’t go anywhere. It just stays put all the time.

That’s the way the slothful is in his bed. Just keeps turning in his bed, keeps turning in his bed, keeps turning. There’s a lot of movement. There’s a lot of activity, and the slothful says, but you know, I’m not lazy, I’m always busy. I’m always doing something. Yeah. But what is the something, is it worth anything?  Is it accomplishing anything or is it just action? Is it just movement?

Always starting but never finishing

More excuses, next in Verse 15 we see that a lazy person never finishes anything

The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth.

They never finish anything. He really wants to eat, but I mean, in order to eat, he has to keep moving. He to get something done.  They never want to finish anything.  January the 19th is national quitters day. People make all these new year’s resolutions for the new year.  I’m going to go on a diet. I’m going to go to the gym. You know, gyms love January. They love January because they get all these new signups, and then they have, bulk up on their resources and things for about the first, couple, three, four weeks. And after that, they just keep getting the dues, and then people stop showing up. It’s awesome for them. It’s great. January 19 is national quitters day, I got married on January 19th.  I ain’t quitting, I quit being single on January 19th.

Lazy people, They’re always the coach, but never the player, always the coach, but never the player. They have nice little phrases and things that they use. You know, like, I work smart. I don’t work hard. There could be some validity to that, but most people, just don’t work hard. They just don’t want to work hard at all.  They don’t want to do anything. They want to sit back and be the coach. They want to sit on the couch so they can tell you how to do that, but they don’t want to do it themselves. I had a guy that worked for me. That was that way. He was a supervisor.

Boy, He really took that phrase and ran to the bank with it. He would say, “No, I’m the supervisor. I don’t have to actually do anything”. You won’t accomplish anything, you won’t get anywhere, you won’t make anything of yourself.

The cause of laziness is not a lack of desire is just simply the desire to remain comfortable.

 Now look over at chapter 21 in verse 25, chapter 21, verse 25 says the desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour.

Lazy people have desires. It’s not that they, they just don’t have any desires. It’s not that they’re just completely and totally apathetic about everything in life. They’re just apathetic about the things that are uncomfortable. People don’t like to be uncomfortable. They are craving comfort. If it isn’t easy, if it isn’t natural, they don’t want to do it.

The lazy say, that’s hard, that hurts. People don’t want to go to the gym because you know, you go in there and you have to start lifting weights or use those machines. And all that hurts. It’s not comfortable. It doesn’t feel good. Now, after you do it for a while, It starts to feel good and things start to change, like a lot of things in your life, Once you force yourself to do it. And then once you do it for a little while, then things changed, and all of a sudden it’s no longer a chore. It’s no longer painful for you. That just means you need to take another step. You need to go a little further, right?

If lifting five pounds doesn’t hurt and it’s not uncomfortable, then you need to jump up to 10 pounds, 110 pounds, 210 pounds, or whatever it takes. You must get out of your comfort zone. If you’re going to accomplish anything, if you’re not going to be lazy in those aspects of your life, you need to get outside of your comfort zone.

Look over in the gospel of Luke, and see what Jesus said:

You only grow when you’re uncomfortable, you have to get outside of that comfort zone. Or you will never grow. You won’t grow in your professional life, You won’t grow in your personal life and your most certainly won’t grow in your spiritual life. If you don’t get outside of your comfort zone, you have to deny yourself, deny what you want.  Yourself wants to stay under the covers, yourself wants to hit that snooze button and waste another four days this year.   The apostle Paul said over in first Corinthians:

You have to bring your body into subjection, your body answers to you. You don’t answer to your body. That’s why having a good diet is so important.  Not so that you can lose weight. So you can look like a magazine model or some other ridiculous thing that is unattainable. You know, they don’t really look like that either, they airbrush and Photoshop and everything else. That’s not the point behind it. The point behind it is so you aren’t subject to the cravings of your body.

You have to bring your body under subjection. Don’t give it what it wants. Your body wants to be comfortable. Your body wants to sit on the couch, eat popcorn, and watch Netflix. That’s what your body wants. It doesn’t want to read, it Doesn’t want to study, it Doesn’t want to go out and plow a field, It doesn’t want to chop firewood.   It doesn’t want to go to work. It doesn’t want to take on new responsibilities. Your body doesn’t want any of those things, because none of that is comfortable. It’s all outside your comfort zone. You got to stick your neck out. You got to work at it. You got to toil. It’s not comfortable.

People are lazy in certain aspects of their life

We just discussed the cause of laziness, the cause is just straight up, the fact that you want to be comfortable. People are lazy in certain aspects of their life. They may be the most unlazy person, you know, over here and the most diligent person that you know, in this aspect of their life and completely lazy on all this stuff over here.

Why? Because it’s not comfortable. This has become comfortable to them, hard-working 50, 60 hours a week going and doing that job, whatever it is, the way that it is. Right? They don’t want to better themselves. They don’t want to grow their business. They don’t, want to get into a management situation.  They, don’t want to take on more responsibilities or anything. They’re fine where they are. They’re nice and comfortable where they are. They don’t want to do anything. They’re good. They think that means they’re diligent. That really means that they’re lazy, but they convince themselves that it means that they’re diligent. I’m not lazy. I go to work every day. I see people going to work every day and every time I see them, they’re looking at their phone on Facebook. That’s not work! unless you work for Facebook. Their excuse is, Well, I’m posting for work. Okay. But that doesn’t take you all-day

The cost of laziness

So what’s the cost of laziness? What does it cost you? When it all boils down, It causes you to have a wasted life.  That’s the cost. Look at Proverbs chapter six, starting with verse number nine, down through verse number 11, the first thing that it’s going to cost you, and all these things add together and end up the end result ends up being a wasted life. But individually, the first thing is going to cost you according to Proverbs, chapter six, verses nine through 11 here, it’s going to cost you prosperity.

Laziness is going to cost you prosperity

Laziness is going to cost you prosperity. Now we don’t believe the prosperity gospel around here. We don’t name it and claim it. All right. The Lord has given you gifts and abilities and opportunities, and he expects you to take advantage of those things. He’s not just going to hand you everything over on a silver platter.  That’s not how it works. You have to work for it. Work is not a result of the fall. There was work before the fall. God put Adam in the garden of Eden and he told him to dress it. Did he not? He told him to name all the animals and everything. Did he not? That was work.  work existed before sin entered into the world.

We’re supposed to work. There are things you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to prosper in this life by working.  Proverbs chapter six, verse number nine says How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? when wilt thou arise out of thy sleep?

Stop hitting the snooze button yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travaileth and thy want as an armed man,

Laziness is going to cost you prosperity. It’s going to cost you, being lazy, refusing to take yourself outside of the comfort zone, refusing to push yourself in other areas, refusing to work harder than everybody else that you know, it’s going to cost you. It’s going to cost you prosperity. Not only that but look over in Proverbs chapter 20 in verse number four, the next thing is going to cost you.

Laziness will cost you your progress

Laziness is going to cost you your progress. You’re going to get stuck in a rut.

Laziness is going to keep you from progressing.  It’s going to keep you from bettering yourself, it is going to keep you from doing anything great in your life. You’re going to get stuck in a rut. You’re going to get up to a certain point. You’ll be like, okay, I’m good. I don’t need to do any better. Now people do that all the time. They don’t want to better themselves.  Why? Because they’re lazy. They get comfortable. This is comfortable for me. This is the number of hours that I want to work. This is the amount of brainpower I want to, exert for my work. This is the amount of muscle involvement that I want to put into my work. And that’s good enough for me. I don’t want to do anymore.  I don’t want to try harder. I don’t want to be the go-to person at the job. I don’t want to be the go-to person at the church. I don’t want to be the go-to person in the family or anywhere else. I’m comfortable where I am and the progress stops. They stop in their tracks

laziness will cost you your purpose

There are works that you’re supposed to do. That’s your purpose. That’s why you’re still here. If you’re saved today, if you put your faith and your trust in the Lord, Jesus Christ, and nothing but him for your salvation and you are still here, that’s because he has a purpose for you.

You haven’t yet fulfilled your purpose. You might be in the process of fulfilling your purpose, but you have not arrived yet. He still has a purpose for you. But your laziness is going to cost you that purpose. You’re going to lose the opportunity to be a blessing to the Lord. You’re going to lose the opportunity to be a blessing to other people. You’re going to lose your opportunity to receive a blessing from the Lord because you’re going to lose your purpose because you are lazy.

You don’t have to like it

Well, I’m busy doing this, but that’s not what the Lord told you to do. Well, I’m busy doing that. Yeah. But what does the Lord tell you that you need to work on? What did the Lord tell you that you need to do more of? what did the Lord say that you need to do less of?   it will cost you your prosperity. It will cost you your progress. It’ll cost you your purpose. You won’t grow personally. You won’t grow professionally and you won’t grow spiritually. If you never get uncomfortable.

You don’t have to like it, it doesn’t have to be easy. It doesn’t have to come easy to you. It doesn’t have to come naturally to you. It doesn’t have to be something that you like to do for it to be the right thing. Do it anyway.  work is supposed to be hard now, before the fall work was great. Adam loved work. It was awesome. It was great. After the fall, what did the Lord tell Adam in Genesis chapter three verses 17 through 19?  After the fall, work is going to be by the sweat of your brow and thorns and briers, and, and all this other stuff; it’s going to be hard. Work is supposed to be hard.  it’s supposed to be hard. So if whatever it is that you’re doing for your work, if it’s not hard, you aren’t working.  That’s why they pay you. When you go down to the job, you know, They pay you because they know you don’t really want to be there. They say all this other nice stuff and flowery stuff and act like, you know, it’s such a, such a great opportunity. We have a family atmosphere and you know, in our culture are so awesome and people just want to come to us in flocks and droves, and everybody just wants to work for us.  Everybody wants to work for you because you pay the best.  That’s why.

Work is supposed to be hard. Some days it might, feel like a grind.  Doing these things, getting outside, getting outside your comfort zone, doing, these new things. It’s not always going to be easy. It’s not always going to be fun.

Sometimes. It’s going to be downright no fun at all. It’s going to be a grind.  Something that’s like a grind, Being ground, that that’s not a pleasant experience. You know, those little coffee grinders, you put your beans in there and you grind them. Think if your one of the beans, Do you think that’s just like a day at the spa?

Sometimes it’s just a daily grind. You just got to do it anyway. You just got to keep plugging away. You got to keep doing it. You got to force yourself to do it.

Nobody wants to be ground up. It’s not something that people stand in line and volunteer for. Colossians chapter three, verse number 23 says And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;

 Sometimes it’s going to be a grind. It’s going to feel like a grind but do it anyway and do it as best as you can do it, as unto the Lord, do everything that you do as unto the Lord, and you will remove laziness out of your life.

Nothing to show for your life

The cause of laziness is the craving for being comfortable.  The cost of laziness ultimately is a wasted life. You will have nothing to show for your life. You didn’t do anything in your entire life that wasn’t comfortable.  Who wants that on their tombstone, who wants somebody standing up there up at their funeral and say, well, let’s see, what can we say about Paul?

Well, you know, I mean, he was really good at being comfortable.

I remember back there on January 1st and 2021, he watched the entire third season of Cobra Kai. In one day.  That’s terrible. Wasn’t there something better to do? Of course, there was, but that was comfortable. I was supposed to be driving to Greenfield and getting a baby seat so I can get a baby seat for Madeline so I can take her to breakfast the next day. Ultimately, I did do that, but not until around midnight.

It wasn’t comfortable and it was cold and it was dark and I’m outside the hotel hoping that nobody sees me getting in and out of this van, looking like I am stealing this car seat out of it. But I got it done.

The cure for laziness

There’s a cure for laziness though. How about you learn or develop some new skills.  You’re comfortable with where you’re at professionally? Take a class, read a book, watch a video, do something to better yourself, take the next step. The same thing applies to professionally, personally, and especially spiritually, learn a new skill, take a seminar, or read a book, watch a video, do something.

 To cure your spiritual laziness:

Start with reading the Bible every day.  You need to start off every single day, reading the word of God. Look, I wrote a little booklet, right? Treasure hunting with your Bible, it’s just a small little ebook that will give you some ideas about what you can do to get more comfortable with reading your Bible, to develop that habit of reading your Bible every day. Some help with as far as the Bible reading plan.  You don’t have to follow that one. That one’s pretty aggressive, to be honest with you.

If you follow the Bible Reading plan included in the Ebook, you will read through the entire Bible once a year, every year. That’s pretty good, but it’s pretty aggressive. It suggests reading five or six chapters a day, but it only takes like 10 minutes to read that much each day. It’s not going to take all day. It’s going to take less time than then your snooze button.

Start off every day, reading the Bible. You’re like, well, I just don’t have time. Well, there’s not a lion in the streets. This is Indianapolis, Indiana. There aren’t any lions. Well, maybe at the zoo.

Just make a decision

Just make a decision. There’s not enough time? There’s time. Just think about it. Pick a time, pick a time, limit, whatever it is for you. 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour, five minutes, whatever it is. And whatever time you are naturally, and already have your alarm clock set for every day, Just back it up that amount of time.  Or don’t hit snooze, then you got your 15 minutes, you got the time.

Move your alarm clock across the room

Then you need to take that alarm clock, whether it’s your phone or an actual alarm clock or whatever it might be, and you need to move it away from arm’s length so you can’t just turn it off without getting out of bed. You don’t want to just turn in the bed, like the slothful and to hit the snooze, move it across the room. So you have to get up to go get it.

Put your Bible on top of the alarm clock

Put your Bible on top of the alarm clock, So when the alarm clock goes off on the other side of the room, You have to get up. You have to walk across the other side of the room in order to turn the alarm clock off. You got to pick the Bible up to turn the alarm clock off.

Open your Bible and read

Well, the Bible’s already in your hand. Now you have to make the conscious decision. I’m going to put it down. That’s half the battle. I already have the Bible, just walk on into the kitchen, make yourself some coffee, open her up, and go read. Do that for the next 30 days. That’s my challenge for you.  Do that for the next 30 days, and it will become a habit.

You’re like, well, it’s pretty uncomfortable to have to get up earlier. I know! we’re trying to, cure your laziness. It’s not supposed to be comfortable. Well, it’s not easy to read that much. I know it’s not supposed to be. It’ll get easier.

But even if it doesn’t get easier, do it anyway because you don’t want to be lazy. Do it anyway. If you’re going to do anything great with your life, it’s going to require discipline. Most people spend all their time trying to avoid discipline. Like they think of discipline, like getting smacked or something.  But discipline is just something that you need.   To do this thing and you had to be disciplined to make yourself do it because your body does not want to do it. And don’t, don’t be thinking, well, you know, that all sounds good and dandy Paul and everything. But I mean, instead of getting up, an extra 15 minutes or anything.  I have a lunch hour. I’ll just do it on my lunch hour. No, you won’t. No, you won’t, you won’t do it at lunch. Well, I’ll just do it later tonight. No, you, won’t, not consistently, something’s going to come up. Something’s going to happen. You will get distracted. You’re going to forget. Now you’re three days behind. What do you do when you’re three days behind?

Just pick up wherever that day is supposed to be on your Bible reading plan. Don’t try to catch up those three days.  If you can, Great! but don’t put that pressure on yourself. Well, I’m doing a buy a 365 day Bible reading plan and I missed three days and now I have to read four days’ worth of stuff today.  You’ll never do it. You’ll never do it. Well, I don’t have time for that. I mean, that’s going to take me an hour and 15 minutes.

Discipline equals freedom

Discipline yourself. Jocko, Willink. is a Navy seal. He is a motivational speaker and stuff now. And he has a book out and his motto in life is discipline equals freedom. That sounds like a paradox, right? Discipline equals freedom. Those things sound like they are contrary to one another.  But the point is,  if you discipline yourself to do the things that you need to do if you discipline yourself to do the things that you know will benefit you, it will ultimately give you the freedom that you desire.

If you’ll discipline yourself to read the Bible every single day and memorize some scriptures.  You say, well is hard to memorize. Okay. So you only do stuff that’s easy. You don’t ever do anything that’s hard? Everything that you do in your life is easy? All right. That just means you’re lazy. You’re lazy. Nobody likes to be called lazy. Nobody wants to be called slothful. Nobody wants to be called a sluggard, but that’s what you are. If you never do anything, that’s hard. You’re a sluggard. You’re, slothful, you’re lazy.

Memorize the word of God.  we’re commanded to do so. We’re commanded to study the Bible. It’s hard to work all that in? It’s not very comfortable?  Stop being lazy, stop making excuses, why you can’t do something, and start making excuses, how you can do it.

You know, the people that excel in the professional world, there are people who figure out a way to get things done. Instead of being the person that says, well, I can’t do that. And I don’t have time for that. And there’s no way that’s going to work and there’s no way we can accomplish that. The person that says, well, let’s see what we can do.  What can we change? What can we reorganize? How Can we accomplish the goal? And that’s what we need to do in our spiritual lives. How is it that we can accomplish the goal? How is it that we can grow spiritually? How is it that we can develop spiritual disciplines in our lives? What do we need to do, to make that happen? and do that thing, whatever that is, it’s not comfortable. Good. I don’t want you to be comfortable. I don’t want you to go through your spiritual life Just being comfortable. You’re supposed to deny yourself. Denying yourself is uncomfortable. The Lord said you have to deny yourself. So, if you’re not denying yourself, you’re being lazy and you’re disobeying the Lord.  Turn your laziness into discipline.

Our hope at Irvington Bible Baptist Church is that this podcast provided some encouragement and has helped you to develop a closer relationship with the LORD Jesus Christ.