SEVEN DEADLY SINS
DR. JIM DIXON
SLOTH
II THESSALONIANS 3:6-15
MARCH 4, 1990
“Busy as a bee.” It is only an expression, but it is based on fact. Honeybees are particularly busy. In order to gather one pound of honey worker bees must travel collectively a distance equal to twice around the world, and they must gather nectar from two million flowers. All of this for one pound of honey, that’s a lot of work. Bees are busy, but people are not always so busy. In fact, some people are downright lazy, and that’s really what slothfulness refers to, laziness.
Over 1900 years ago, in the days of the Apostle Paul in the city of Thessalonica, the people were having a problem with slothfulness. Some of the people had quit their jobs and were living in idleness. Perhaps they thought the second coming of Christ was near and consummation was imminent. We do not know, but we know that many of them were living in idleness, not doing any work. Er gosomy peri er gosomy, is the Greek phrase meaning working around working. Paul says they were working around working, mere busy bodies, not doing any work and living in idleness. Rebuking them he said, “If anyone will not work, let him not eat.” He laid the burden on the faithful to not give support to the lazy in their idleness.
I doubt very much if this kind of slothfulness is a real problem in this congregation. I doubt very much in this subculture and in this group, the slothfulness that keeps a person from earning a living is a big problem. Most of you are willing to do your work and most of you are willing to make a living. And even if you are out of work right now, you are simply between jobs. It’s not that you don’t want to work, you are looking for work. But you see, I think there are other kinds of slothfulness far more dangerous to us, and I’d like us to examine three of them this morning. First of all, there is the sloth that is too lazy to love. That’s slothfulness. See, love is a lot of work. Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “this is the greatest commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. And the second greatest commandment is unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.”
The Good Samaritan is an illustration of what it means to love your neighbor. On the Jerusalem road to Jericho, A man fell among thieves who robbed, beat, stripped and left him half dead by the side of the road. A priest came by and saw the wounded man, and he continued on. A Levi came by and he saw the wounded man, and he did the same. And finally, a Samaritan came. He saw this wounded man, and he did what love required. He went to the wounded man and gave him medical aid. He poured medicinal oil on his wound and bandaged him. He lifted him up and put him on his donkey. The Samaritan walked alongside the wounded man on the donkey. He walked on the long Jerusalem Jericho Road until they came to an inn. The Samaritan spent the entire night caring for this wounded man, giving him care, giving him what love required. The next morning, the Samaritan gave money to the end keeper, that the care might be continued. He made a commitment that he would return and make sure, things were set right.
Sometimes people have wondered, “Why didn’t the priest and the Levi do this? Why didn’t they do what love required? Why did they continue on?” Some have said, “Well, perhaps they were afraid that the wounded man was dead and they did not want to touch a dead body for fear that they would be defiled and ceremonially unclean.” Would you break the law? Others have said, “Well, maybe they didn’t stop and maybe they didn’t help this man because they were simply too busy on their way to a temple gathering perhaps or some ecclesiastical function, they were late and they couldn’t stop.” Others have said, “Well, maybe the priest and the Levi didn’t stop because they noticed that the man had already been robbed.” Then of course, there are others who suggest, and I think rightly so, that perhaps the priest and the Levi didn’t stop simply because of slothfulness. Maybe they were just too lazy to love. They knew the work that love required. They knew they would have to care for this man, give medical care, bandage his wounds, and carry the man to a house of mercy. They knew the work and didn’t want to pay the price. They were too lazy to love.
We live in a world, where I think a lot of people tragically are too lazy to love. I don’t think this is anywhere manifested more than in the marriage relationship. Love is supremely required in marriage. A lot of people think love is a feeling you fall into and fall out of. God tells us love is a commitment. It’s a decision of the will that you’re going to serve another person’s needs. That is what marriage requires and yet some people are simply too lazy to love.
Anthony Campolo, Professor of Sociology at Eastern University, a deeply committed Christian man tells the story of a man who competed in athletics in high school and college. He participated in football, basketball and loved sports. After college, he went to college and professional sporting events and watched games on the television. One day he fell in love with a beautiful woman and they were married. This woman decided that while she didn’t like sports that much, she was going to try to share her husband’s life. She went with him to college and professional football and basketball games. She watched sports with her husband, and she even read the sports section in the newspaper to be able to discuss with some intelligence, the sporting events taking place in the community and in the nation. The husband began to be totally consumed by sports and gave more of his time to watching sports. It consumed his entire weekend and evenings of the week. He began to no longer participate in church and began to neglect family activities and his wife. He did not serve his wife and her needs. He had no interest or any sexual desire for his wife anymore. He only cared about sports. As time passed, the wife had an affair with another man.
The husband came to Anthony Campolo saying, “What can I do? I want to save my marriage. Is there anything I can do?” And Anthony Campolo said, “Yeah, there’s something you can do. You can start loving your wife and you can start doing what love requires. You can begin to decrease your involvement with sports. Sports are great, but they were never meant to consume your life. You can watch less sports on tv. You can go to less sporting events and you can begin to focus on your wife. You can begin to care for her and consider her needs. You can begin to involve yourself in family activities, and you can begin to participate in the life of the church. You can begin every day by asking yourself, what does my wife need? What can I do to make her happy?”
The man said, “Well, frankly, I thought of all that. To tell you the truth I really don’t feel that I’m willing to make that kind of effort. I want her back, but not that much.” Too lazy to love. I realize that’s an extreme example, but to a lesser degree, this problem is an epidemic. In our time, people are simply too lazy to love and slothfulness kills marriages.
Perhaps you’ve heard of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is the study of various forms of energy, the conversion of energy from one form to another. You may have heard of the second law of thermodynamics, sometimes called the law of entropy. According to the second law of thermodynamics, the direction of spontaneous change in a closed system moves inevitably towards randomness. It moves inevitably towards disorder. And this is said to be ultimately true of the universe itself. That in accord with the second law of thermodynamics, the law of entropy, the universe itself is winding down. This is said to be true of any system. Unless there is an ordered input of energy, that system will wind down. It’s true of the house you live, unless there is maintenance, unless there’s an ordered input of energy, that house will begin to decay and it will begin to erode. Similarly, it’s true of your marriage. Unless there’s an ordered input of energy, our marriage will move inevitably towards disorder, inevitably towards randomness. It’ll wind down. God wants us to know ordered input of energy is called love. And if we’re too lazy to love, marriage just isn’t going to make it. We live in a nation, in a world, where divorce is rampant epidemic. God’s challenge to his people is too love one another; it begins in the home. Don’t be too lazy to love.
There is a second kind of slothfulness, it is one that is too lazy to nurture. We live in a world where a lot of moms and dads are just too lazy to nurture. The Bible tells Christian parents to bring your children up, and nurture an admonition of the Lord. The Bible tells us as we approach the consummation, the second coming of Jesus Christ, and move towards Armageddon, that the hearts of moms and dads will grow cold, and that children will rise up against their parents and there will be a breakdown in the family. I want to suggest to you this morning that most of our children’s nurture today does not really come from parents. Most children today are nurtured primarily by television and peers.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the average child in the United States today watches three and a half hours of TV a day. According to this week’s TV guide, the average child in this nation watches almost four hours of television a day. During that time, the average child sees five commercials promoting the use of alcohol. During that time, the average child watches thirty-three acts of violence, thirty-eight references to explicit sexual activity. And according to the National Coalition on Television Violence, the average child in this nation, by the time he or she is eighteen years of age, will have seen fifty-two thousand murders or attempted murders on television. If they have basic cable, seventy-two thousand murders or attempted murders.
Now perhaps you say, well, it really doesn’t matter, I don’t think that’s having any effect. Perhaps there are children out there who are immune to all this. But I got to tell you, I am absolutely convinced that it is having a negative effect on our children today. Our children are in desperate need of nurture. Our children are hurting. recent studies show that fifteen percent of the children in this nation are so emotionally disordered that they are already in need of professional psychological counsel. One in ten, one out of every ten pre teenagers has already contemplated suicide. And our children are experiencing increasing problems with drug addiction, with violence, with sexual promiscuity.
When I was in eighth grade, one out of every ten eighth graders had tried alcohol. One out of every ten. According to the most recent issue of Red Book Magazine, eight out of every ten eighth graders have tried alcohol. Changing times. Even more alarmingly one out of every twenty, ninth graders have a tried cocaine. Fifty percent of the girls in the United States of America will have had sexual intercourse before they graduated from high school.
Teens are having babies. According to the Gutmacher Institute, teenage girls will conceive more than a million babies out of wedlock in America this year. According to the FBI, in a 1989 study, children under ten years of age have actually been convicted of murder, rape and crime. Violence is growing in the home, schools and streets of America. Children know they’re not getting the nurture they need and every day in the United States, two thousand seven hundred forty kids run away from home. According to the National Center for Missing Children, four thousand seven hundred and seven children are reported missing every day. One hundred thousand children are homeless in this nation, some children are home and they might as well be homeless for all the attention they receive. As we saw last week, the average dad is spending seven minutes a day nurturing their children, the average mom, twenty-seven minutes. We need to do something about it.
I know it’s hard and not easy to nurture children, particularly in this society and in this age when so many men and women work outside the home. I understand the necessity of that. The facts are that seventy percent of the women in today’s workforce work out of economic necessity. They’re single, they’re widowed, they’re divorced, or they’re married to men who are unemployed or making less than fifteen thousand dollars a year. In that sense, it’s inevitable that we would have 2.4 million children in daycare centers every day. Praise God for daycare centers but they can never give the nurture that parents are called to give.
If things are going to change, we’re going to have to be willing to sacrifice. We have to be willing to make an effort. It’s not always convenient to do family activities, to have a family meal or devotional. It’s not always convenient to discipline our children appropriately and to establish the boundaries that they need. It is a lot easier just to let them go and whatever they want to do. It’s work to nurture. It’s not always convenient to monitor what our children are into. It is a lot easier to let your teenager go up into their room and have he or she close the door, turn on the music as loud as they want, and try to ignore it. You can’t do that in this day of heavy metal and so-called black, death metal, gloom and Satan rock.
There are musical groups out there who perform concerts where they simulate slashings, stabbings and decapitations. They drink blood on stage. They gnaw on grizzly bear bones. They participate in occult rituals and satanic rites. Your children might be listening to music and watch accompanying videos that are filled with anger, hatred and explicitly promote sex, blood, and gore. I think it’s natural for parents and children to have different tastes in music as there is a gap there. I understand that when I grew up, I loved to listen to the Beatles, the Mamas and the Papas, and I liked Elvis Presley. My parents didn’t like any of them, the way they looked, or the beat of the music. If I was, simply referring to the looks of the performers and the beat of the music, I wouldn’t be that concerned; but have you ever listened to the lyrics? These are changing times, and some of the lyrics are simply abominable. If you don’t monitor what your kids are into, no one else is going to monitor them. And if you don’t nurture your children, no one else is going to nurture them. If we’re too lazy to nurture; our kids are going to pay the price. Parenting is not easy and sometimes there’s very little reward, at least in the short term. We like instant gratification. Parenting and nurturing just doesn’t provide that. Sometimes children grow up and they’re not very grateful for the nurture they received.
I understand that on a very personal level. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit this, but I didn’t appreciate what my mom and dad did for me growing up. I can remember when I was in college participating in track meets. Sometimes those track meets were a couple of hundred miles away. I’d go into the stadium see mom and dad. They’d drive three hundred miles to see me perform. Sometimes I’d wave, other times I wouldn’t even go over to them after the meet, I’d go out with the team and my parents would drive the three hundred miles home. I just thought they were parents doing what parents do and it really wasn’t until I was thirty years old that I began to just have this deep sense of feeling towards what my parents had done for me. I began be able to tell mom and dad that I loved and was thankful for them.
I hope you live long enough to hear your children rise up and call you blessed. I hope you live long enough to have your children rise up and say, “Thank you, Mom. Thank you, Dad.” But if you don’t, and if you die before you ever hear that, you still should not fail to nurture. Don’t be too lazy to nurture. Slothfulness kills children.
I would never promise you today that if you nurture correctly, your kids will turn out great. I know that’s not always so. God’s first two kids were Adam and Eve and they got into a lot of trouble. Adam’s first two children were Cain and Able, and one of them was a murderer. If your children don’t turn out, I’m not trying to lay a guilt trip on you, but God wants to call us to faithfulness. If there ever was a generation where parents needed to be sacrificial, it’s today. Slothfulness kills child rearing.
Well, thirdly, and finally, there’s a form of sloth that threatens us. And it’s the sloth that’s just too lazy to grow, love, and nurture. Some people are just too lazy to change, to experience the process of sanctification and the transformation into Christ-likeness that God calls us too.
I’m sure most of you have heard of an animal called the sloth. Sometimes it’s called the giant sloth. I have to say this is one of the weirdest animals on the earth. It lives in South America, has long, coarse hair, claws and walks and sleeps upside down in trees. There is the eye sloth, which has three toes and there’s the uno sloth, which has two toes. The sloth has one of the slowest metabolisms known to the animal world. The process by which it converts food to energy is slow, and the sloth barely moves. They have found that a sloth on the ground is only able to move at 0.07 miles per hour. A garden snail moves at 0.03 miles per hour and a giant tortoise moves at 0.17 miles per hour. A turtle moves twice as fast, as a sloth. It takes 14 hours for a sloth to go one mile. If there was a goal for a sloth to move from Denver to Los Angeles and that sloth moved on a straight line towards LA without stopping for food or to talk to friends, it would take that sloth 14,000 hours to get there. That’s not taking in sleep time. The sloth sleeps 80% of the time. When you take that into consideration, 70,000 hours, eight years, to reach LA, that’s why it’s called a sloth.
Now, if you’re a Christian, if you believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he has set a great goal before you. That goal is called Christlikeness. The apostle Paul said it was the goal of his life that he might be found like him. That’s the goal the Father has set before you and to all of you who believe.
What is Christ likeness? It is the fruit of the spirit. It is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control. Nine attributes are set before you and God wants you to move towards that goal and he doesn’t want you to be slow about it. He’s given you the power of the Holy Spirit within you and you need to be willing to make some effort. Slothfulness kills sanctification. It kills growth. Every morning, we ought to put those nine attributes of Christ, the fruit of the spirit on the refrigerator. And we ought to put that list on the mirror in the bathroom. We ought to begin every day saying, “How am I doing? Lord, search me. Know me. Change me.” Take a moment and just think about the seven deadly sins. Think about them.
There’s pride, the first deadly sin. It’s self-exaltation, placing yourself above God, the laws of God, placing yourself above other people, always wanting to be number one and ascendency. There’s envy, coveting what somebody else has and not wanting the other person to have it. There’s anger.
Anger is rage and might be directed at some evil that’s in the world around you. Or perhaps it is caused by some evil within you. You can try to suppress and vent your anger, but God wants you to use that anger constructively for good. When it’s not usable, he wants you to overcome it with love.
The fourth deadly sin is lust, sexual desire without love. It views people as objects for one’s own gratification. It is sexual desire without sanity. It is excessive sexual desire, heightened by a world that has fallen. It is sexual desire with willful disregard for the boundaries God has established. It is an opening of the gift of sex outside of the context of marriage itself.
There’s gluttony, the fifth deadly sin of over indulgence. It’s deadly because it destroys the body. If you’re a Christian and you believe in Christ as Lord and Savior, it destroys the temple of the Holy Spirit within you.
The sixth deadly sin is greed it’s the love of money and always wanting more. Greed can destroy you, the people around you, and the church.
Some have said the worst and deadliest of the seven sins is slothfulness. How could sloth be the worst of the seven deadly sins? It’s the sloth that keeps you from overcoming any of the other sins. I mean, if you look at your life and you see pride, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, greed, and you think, I just don’t want to make the effort to do anything about it. That’s slothfulness and it kills us spirituality, it kills Christian growth, and destroys sanctification.
The Apostle Peter said, “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with steadfastness, steadfastness with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” Make every effort. Slothfulness means being too lazy to love, too lazy to nurture, too lazy to grow. Let’s close with a word of prayer.