[Gary Petty] I read one time that this was something that was posted, a notice that was posted on an employee bulletin board at a business. It says, "Due to increased competition and a keen desire to stay in business, we find it necessary to institute a new policy. We're asking that somewhere between starting time and quitting time and without infringing on the time devoted to lunch, coffee breaks, rest periods, storytelling, tickets selling, vacation planning, and rehashing of gossip, each employee endeavors to find some time to set aside as what we're calling the work break. This may seem a radical innovation, but we believe the idea has possibilities. It can conceivably be an aid to steady employment and regular paychecks. While adoption to the work break is not compulsory, it's hoped that each employee will find time to give it a fair trial."

But the six years that I spent working in radio advertising, I came in contact with a lot of different businesses, small businesses, big businesses. And one of the problems they all had every one of them was how do we find and keep good employees? That's a problem that they all faced. You say, "Okay, employees, what does that have to do with what we're going to talk about today?" Are you a good employee? Do you work hard? "What's that have to do with my Christianity?"

Actually, the Bible talks about having a work ethic. What does that mean? What does it mean that we are to have a work ethic? What does the Bible really teach us about work? There's an interesting story that we find in 2 Thessalonians 3. That Paul is making some personal comments here to the people of Thessalonica about a problem that they had. Picking it up in verse 6. He says, "But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which you received from us."

Now, these people were disorderly. And he's actually saying, you know, these people have become so disorderly in the congregation that we're just suggesting you don't even talk to them. That's a pretty strong statement. Like what in the world were they doing? I mean, disorderly means that they're causing problems, they're destroying relationships. I mean, what in the world are these people doing to cause that kind of problem? You think well, they must have some heresy, you know that they're teaching or what are they doing? He says, "For you, yourselves know… He says… Let me give you an example here. "For you, yourselves know how you ought to follow us."

He's talking about him and some traveling companions who had been with him when he went to actually visit the church of Thessalonica. "How you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you." Okay, well, we didn't create this problem when we were there so we tried to show you an example. He says, "Nor did we eat anyone's bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we did not have authority, to make ourselves example of how you should follow us." So he uses himself as an example. He says, “You know, when I came there,” with his ministerial companions, he says, “we didn't taking money from you to serve you while we were there.” But they worked day and night. And of course, we know that he was a tentmaker.

So he says, "We worked our own jobs and didn't take money, even though we could have. I mean, it would only be ethically right for the church to support us while we were there." But he says, "No, we didn't ask anything from you." So there's a problem here he's getting to that has to do with disorderly conduct. He says, "For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but they're busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread."

Boy, what kind of major problem were they having? Now, I don't know exactly, but the cause was that there was a large enough group of people in their congregation who just refused to work. They just didn't work. And it says there were busybodies. They spent their time just meddling in everybody else's business. So they were creating this constant problem in the church. Which I mean, that seems sort of odd to us today. I mean, I don't think I've ever been in a congregation where I've seen this exact problem where you had a large number of people just creating all this problem at church because they just refuse to work.

But there's an important statement he makes here. He says, "For even when we were with you…" I'm sorry, he says, "For if they shall not work, they shall not eat… If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” That's the point he's making. Now, the Bible is very clear in the absolute command to take care of the poor. Everyone has a responsibility to take care of the poor. Poor people who are there because some calamity has happened, because maybe they just don't have the skills to get certain jobs. Maybe they… you know, there's all kinds of reasons why someone could be poor. And the church is given and ancient Israel were given explicit commands to help take care of poor people. What Paul says here is, if a person is poor because they won't work, you don't take care of them.

Now, that seems strange too in the society we live in. And why would he say that? If the person is hungry, and he says no if it's because they refuse to eat, let them get hungry, and then they will go work. Let them get hungry then they'll go work. So he's making a point here. Now, once again, we have to put this in the context of why he makes this statement. There is in the congregation a group of people who cause nothing but problems in the church. They're meddling in everybody else's business or probably just showing up at people's houses expecting to be taken care of.

Although I have had… I have had as a pastor, a few people that do that. I've come across people who will go from church to church. And they'll come in and they'll spend three-four months in a church living with people, being taken care of by people always saying they're going to get a job. Sometimes I've seen it go on for six months and the people will take them in. A lot of times it's older people. Then they'll wear out there welcome there, and go someplace else. And eventually, it comes down to this person doesn't even look for a job. And so you have a conversation and say, look, "You just can't come in and take advantage of these people." I mean, in some cases, large amounts of money were given to then and then they disappear.

Then I get an email from another pastor that says, "Hey, so and so has showed up at my church and they just moved in with a couple of the elderly people." And I've seen men… it's always men. But I've seen men be able to do this sometimes for a couple of years before they get caught. Now, Paul would say, "Sorry, you don't work, you don't eat. We don't give you anything. You don't work, you don't receive shelter." He's talking about Christians taking care of Christians here. He says, "If you refuse to do certain things, then the church is not to take care of you." So this means work is important. This is an extreme example but this is where I want to start. It must be important for Paul to make these instructions to a church. If a person refuses to work, it's not that they can't work, or maybe they just don't have a lot of skills or whatever. And you know, they're doing the best they can, maybe they have a real low paying job because that's all they can do then we're supposed to take care of them, help them. “But if they refuse to work,” he says, “then you don't take care of them.”

So work is important. Work is an important part of who we are because work is part of our Christian character. Now, I'm going to talk about being a workaholic here. I might mention a couple of times. Being a workaholic is the other end of the scale. Being a workaholic is spiritually wrong also. When we put ourselves into our work so much that we're not having a right relationship with God, we're not taking care of our families, we're not taking care of ourselves. And recreation is part of life. Fun is part of life. So that's that other extreme.

But usually, we as human beings tend to fall on the sort of lazy side than the workaholic side. So we're going to talk about work today. Because it is an ethical issue. Now, I will say this when I talk about work here, and I've seen this happen in the church. I've actually had people come to me and want to counsel because they'll say, "You know, I realized that I'm preparing for the Kingdom of God. And since I'm preparing for the kingdom of God, I'm just a" and you can fill in the blank. “I'm just a construction worker. I'm just a salesman. I'm just a housewife. I'm just a office worker.” And whatever they fill in and they say, "Probably I need to get another job to prepare for the Kingdom of God." Your career isn't the issue, it's your work ethic that's the issue. It's your work ethic that's the issue, not what you're doing.

I used to tell my kids, "Find out what you're really good at, that makes you happy and go become the best at it. You may not make the most money, but you will be happy." When you're doing work you love, you're happy. Now, unfortunately, every job has drudgery. We'll talk about that in a minute. And you can be trapped at a job sometimes for a while that you hate. Okay, what do you do with that? Well, we'll talk about that in a minute, too. These are all real issues. This is practical Christianity, practical Christianity. So it doesn't matter what job you do. God doesn't care if you're an architect. God doesn't care if you're a boss with 100 people. God doesn’t… Well, I say He doesn't care.

What's really interesting is go through all the scriptures about employers. There are lots of scriptures in the Old and New Testament about employers. There's one of the laws in the Old Testament that says, "If you withhold your wages that you owe people as an employer, God will punish you." Is that a little scary? God says, "I hold that, personally, that's a personal issue. If people work for you, and you hold back their wages, then that's personal between Me and you. I will deal with that." So there's a lot of instructions about bosses and employers. But we're going to talk about employees today. Most of us are employees. There's a few here that might own your own business, but most of us do not.

So what does the Bible teach about work? You know, I talked about your jobs. Most people will have multiple jobs in a lifetime. What's really different than say 50 years ago, my dad, his dad, back then, most people had one career. Many times they worked for the same company their entire lives. That's not true today. Most of you, if you're young, you're going to have more than one career. You actually have more than one career. You may start out in something and end up doing something totally different by the end of your life.

In fact, the average person today will have three different careers. Now, we're not talking about three different jobs. You may have a career which you work for three or four different companies, and then another career and you work for three or four different companies. So it's changed from… it used to be you get hired by somebody, you work for that same company maybe your whole life. It's not that way anymore. Remember, it's not the specific job. It's the work ethic that's the Christian part of what you do. God doesn't care if you're a farmer. Be a good farmer. Like I used to tell my son he loved working on cars, I said, "Go be a car mechanic." "I can't make a lot of money." "Just go be the best car mechanic you can be." Now, he's selling insurance and loves it. So I was wrong on that one.

I used to tell my kids, "I can't determine what you're going to do, you have to decide that. You have to decide what you're going to do because it's your life, it's not mine." So, learn the work ethic, and you're going to be pretty much successful in everything you do. Now, I say successful, even if you do it right, bad things happen. In preparing this, I looked up probably 10 websites. They were business websites. They were management websites. One was a college website giving advice to students on reasons people get fired. And, you know, the number one was they just don't do their job. Like, number two was people fall asleep. That kept showing up all over. People sleep, you know. Number three was they're spending all their day on their cell phone, or, you know, they're just not involved in their work. There was all these reasons.

But then I saw another list from a business magazine. It was pretty interesting. It said, "We're going to tell you some other reasons why people get fired. The boss wants to give the job to his nephew,” okay. And then there were reasons why you get fired, which you are doing a great job and your manager becomes absolutely jealous of you and gets you fired. And I've known people that have gone through that. Got fired because they were doing a good job, and somebody got jealous.

So, okay, life, you know, there's no magic pill that says do this equals perfect success, that's not life. Sometimes you do it right and something bad happens. The difference is when you're doing it right you will find something else to do. You can recover from the problem if you're doing it right. If you're doing it wrong… I mean, you get fired from someplace three or four times just because it says you're insubordinate. You just aren't going to listen to your boss. You think he's an idiot, and you've been fired from three places because you think the boss is an idiot. Guess what the next boss is going to do, not hire you, right? They don't want to put up with that. So if you do it the right way, you have a much better chance of recovering from the bad things when they happen. Do it the wrong way and sooner or later you dig yourself in a hole.

What does the Bible say about work? Let's go to Colossians. Say well, this isn't a spiritual issue. Whether I daydream on the job, whether I play video games on the job when I should doing something else, that's not a spiritual issue. Colossians 3:22. Bondservants, now bondservants, so that was you worked for somebody because you owed them something. This is a type of employership. I mean, there were businesses in the Roman Empire where they hired employees. There were people that had bondservants. In other words, "you owe me something so you got to work for me."

There were people who… if you were craftsmen, especially, you would be hired out to different people. Of course, they had slaves, too. So Paul is just talking to a class of people that work for other people. He says, "Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh,” what? Now, not if they tell you to do something against God. Now, if your employer tells you to do something dishonest, you say, "No." And sooner or later, most of us have had to face that. I've had to face it earlier in my life. Or you just say, "I can't do that. That's immoral. That's wrong, whatever you're asking me to do."

I remember one radio station… I probably should have mentioned this before. I was really supposed to go date all the young girls that worked at the advertising agencies after… you know, not date, just go to the bar with them. I said, "I got a pregnant wife at home. I'm not going to go out after work and take these young single women to a bar." He said, "Well, you don't have to let them know you won't do anything." That's literally what I was told. "Just, you know, have some fun with them and then you get the account." And I said, "I don't want the account that bad." The owner of that radio station told me you know… it was the number one radio station in Austin, Texas. He said, "You know, you're a nice guy and in my experience, nice guys don't make it in a lot of companies." I didn't.

So you obey them in their job what they're telling you to do not with eye service as men-pleasers. In other words, you're not doing this because you just want to get on the good side of your boss. But in sincerity of heart. In other words, you do your job, you do it because you want to do the job right. Why? Because you're fearing God. "And whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance for you serve the Lord Jesus Christ." What? He makes this a spiritual issue. When you go to work, you give all that you have because you think that you're serving God. "I'm serving God."

Why would you do that? Because to your employer, to the people you work with you are representing God to them. Believe me, they all figure out you're a little bit different. They know your religion is a little bit different. Wherever you are, you represent God. And it's that way when you go to work. So when you go to work you give everything you have. Look what it says in 1 Timothy. Here, Paul writing once again, 1 Timothy 6. He really spells it out here. He says, "Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke…” in other words, sometimes when you work with somebody else, you're under a yoke, right? You don't show up on time. And by the way, that's one of the reasons that kept coming up, people were getting fired. Now, certain companies are very loose with that policy, certain aren't.

And if you work for a company and said, "What time we start?" "Oh, 9, 9:30, you know, just sort of whenever you come in." And there's companies like that. Then you get a company that says, "We expect you here at 8:30." And you're there at 8:40 and they fire you. And you can say, "Well, the last company was like this. This isn't fair." And they say, "But you don't work with the last company. You work for us." And so it is a yoke to work for other people. Now it doesn't mean it can't be fun. I mean, I enjoy being a pastor. No, I love being a pastor. But there are days where it's tough. There's days where it's tough.

He says, “yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor." Why? I mean, all of us here have worked for some person that you know, wasn't worthy of honor, right? We've all been there. So why would you do that? And here's why. "So that the name of God and His teachings will not be blasphemed." So that the name of God won't be blasphemed. They may say, "I don't like you." They may not like you because you are so honest. They may not like you because you are obeying God, but God won't be blasphemed. And that's why I said, when you go to work, you represent God. When you go to work, you are there your work ethic is part of your Christianity. So yeah, we should talk about this. Yes, it is important. And yes, it is one of the keys to success.

And sometimes younger people, you know, struggle with… you know, we all did when… Although I didn't. When I was young, I figured out somehow, I don't know why, when I was about 15 years old, I made a list of all the things I wanted to do in life. You know, get baptized. Find me a good woman that will take me, have children. Okay, that was number three. After that, it was work in radio, become a television talk show host, become an author of books, work as a reporter for… I had all these things I was going to do. Some of them I've done, I tell you what, being a minister wasn't on the list. Some I've done. Some I haven't.

But we all struggle with, "What am I supposed to do with my life?" You will have lots of choices in life and you probably… whatever choice you make at 18, you're going to change. The important thing is, what is your work ethic? Because you can change. I mean, I've known people who were doctors and became something else at age 30 and have been very successful. They were successful doctors. Now, they're successful with something else. I mean, what a change. You become a doctor at 28, at 35 you change jobs. You can have lots of choices in life. The important thing is if you learn how to work, you actually are equipped to make those choices. And you'll be equipped to make the changes if you want to.

If you don't know how to work, you don't have the ability to make the changes. There are people who are trapped in jobs because they've never learned how to work and they can't get out of it. It's all they can do. Now, some people, it depends on your personality. You find a job and you like it, and you stay in it for the rest of your life. And that's great too. But you have the equipment to make the decision. You see what I mean? You have the ability to make those decisions because your character is right, your work ethic is right. Otherwise, other people make those decisions for you. So that's what this is about. And so you are following God. You are doing this because you represent God. Now, that would change a lot of things, how you handle a lot of things at work.

So that's the first point I want to make. You know, when you go to work, you're going to work there as a representative of God. Now, you have to accept that. If you don't accept that it's like everything else. You either accept you're a Christian or not, but we shouldn't call ourselves Christian if we don't believe that we are followers of Christ and represent Christ. If we're Christians, we're representing. What we do at work counts. What we do at work matters. I mean, you spend 8 hours, you know, 40 hours a week at least at work probably more.

And a lot of even your happiness depends on what happens when you work. You know, a lot of times people will drag home their problems from work and bring them home and have a rotten marriage because of the problems they have at work. Especially if they're both working, they both drag it home and, you know, one can't help the other and they're unhappy. And the real issue sometimes isn't the marriage. The real issue is what's happening at work.

The second point… Now, we're going to get down to some real practical… the first thing here is a little bit conceptual. We work to represent God. Okay, so that means what I do is important. The second is that a proper work ethic requires that there's a list, you accomplish the work that is assigned to you in the way that it has been assigned to you and in the time allotted. Here's your job, do it this way and do it in this amount of time. Now, sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, this way doesn't work." Sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, I can't do it in this amount of time." Sometimes you go back and say, "Hey, I finished early so I didn't go to sleep, or I didn't sit around and, you know, just call up and look at pictures of puppies. Instead, I've come and said, "What do you want me to do next boss?"

I mean, one of the reasons we hate work so much is we get bored because we're bored with what we're doing. You're never bored when you're locked into doing something and you're putting your effort into it. Proverbs 26. Here's where it shows laziness is a moral deficiency. It is a moral problem. Proverbs 26:13, "The lazy man says, ‘There's a lion in this road! A fierce lion in the streets!” In other words, "I can't go outside." They have an excuse for everything. I mean, the excuse is there's a lion in the street is silly. There's a lion in the street, it doesn't matter. In other words, the excuse doesn't matter. "I'm just not going to do it. I just make up an excuse."

"As the door turns on its hinges, so does the lazy man on his bed." I love that one. You know, you've heard an old creaky door that's all rusty and will hardly open. Although I have to admit it at 63 there's days that getting out of bed is like that. But it's literal, because that's the sound of my joints, okay. But we have to make ourselves get up and go. And there's a few people, most of us really can't believe it, they just wake up, jump out of bed. They're happy. They're ready to go. And it's, like, the rest of us, we just sort of walk around in a stupor for a while, and grunt for coffee and, you know. But you make yourself do it. More people have lost jobs because they simply won't make themselves do it.

And he calls this a lazy person. "The lazy man buries his hand in the bowl; and wearies him to bring it back to his mouth." Now you can imagine, you take your spoon and you stick it in the bowl and you just sit and stare and say, "Would someone feed me please?" It's an absurdity to this. "The lazy man is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer sensibly." And that's very true. The more lazy we are, the more reasons we have for being lazy, the more reasons why it's somebody else's fault. And the more reasons why, everybody that tells us, "No, that's not how the way it works," we say they're either wrong or they don't understand, or "Hey, get out of my face. You're oppressing me." And so we stay the way we are.

So there is an amount of effort that we have to put into this. A small business had a sign hanging on the wall that said, "If you don't believe the dead come back to life, you've never been here at quitting time." You know, all work does have some drudgery. I mean, I have to admit, when I'm doing paperwork sometimes, I'd rather be out visiting people or, you know, working on a Bible study. I have certain paperwork I have to do. But it has to be done. So you pile through it, you know. I'll tell my wife, "I'm going up to my office. I'll be up there for three hours. I'm doing paperwork." And I find out when I tell her that she won't even talk to me for three hours. It's, like, "He's up there. Leave him alone." But you got to plow through it, you got to make yourself do it. It has to be done. There is a point we have to face no matter what the job you have. And sometimes when you start out in a job, you know, they give you the worst jobs to begin with then you have to do the worst jobs.

I think I've mentioned this before I worked… In the Worldwide Church of God, I worked in SEP. And I worked two summers, where I was in charge of the janitorial crew. Now, one of the things we had to do was the bathhouses every morning after hundreds of teenagers went in and destroyed it. We would get a dorm of maybe, you know, 30 teenagers, and now we had to go clean up something that was, like, out of a horror movie. I can't explain what 200 teenagers will do to a bathhouse, okay. And they would all be, I mean, griping and complaining. They didn't want to go in, So I had to give them the little speech all the time. That little speech was, "in life, you're going to be asked to do things you don't want to do. We have an hour to do this. We can go make this a game and I am…" the other two people I had working with me "we'll go in and help you do it. We'll get right…" I mean, the toilets were always clogged up. It was just horrible. "We will help you do this. And if we work as a team, and you do what we say, we'll be done in a half-hour. And then the other half hour, you have off. You can do whatever you want. You can go sit around." You know, all they ever wanted to do when they were done was just is sit around and talk. "You can do that. If you don't, you'll be here the full hour and only half the job will be done and you will hate it every minute."

And so we would go in, and for, you know, 20 minutes to a half-hour, we told them how to work as a team, we told them what to do, how to motivate each other. When one person slacks, everybody's got to make them work. And you know, they were always done in a half-hour. And then they had a half-hour off. Well, I can't say always. Because sometimes you get a group that just wouldn't do it. And an hour later, they were mad and grumpy. They'd be mad and grumpy the whole rest of the morning. They were upset. They hated it. How dare people make them have to do this? And they were miserable.

Now, everybody had the same job and it was just as bad for everybody. And you know, some groups came out of there, fired up ready to go, "Hey, man, we got a half-hour." Other groups after an hour were, "We hated this." And you know, it would take them a long time to get over it. The idea is at times, we just have to say, "The job has to be done," and we throw ourselves into it completely.

Many years later, I had a man come up to me and say, "Hey, you changed my life." I said, "I did. How did I ever change your life?" He said, "At SEP, that little talk you gave to us every time when we had to go in and clean out the bathhouse." I said, "Yeah?" He said, "I applied that to my life." And he says, "Now I own my own business and I'm quite wealthy." You simply attack the job at hand. And then you go do something else. But you attack the worst job by attacking it. You go into it. You do your work. Now, work ethic requires that you accomplish the work assigned to you, the way that it has been assigned, and in the time allotted. And so you do it.

The third point, a proper work ethic requires you use your time to give your employee a full day's work. You give them a full day's work. Say, "Yeah, but sometimes, you know, eight hours is a long time." I understand. But when I started to look at the reason people get fired, and so many of the times is because they're not working. They're talking, they're gossiping, they're texting, they're doing all different kinds of things.

Understand this, what if a friend of yours said, "Here. I can't go to the store. I'm going to give you $100 to go to the store and get all this stuff for me. Here's a $100. And since you're doing this for me, and it's so nice, you know, get yourself some lunch." You say, "Okay," and you took their $100. And you're supposed to be back in an hour. You come back three hours later and instead of the list, you have two things in a bag. And they say, "Well, wait a minute, you know, I had all this stuff." And you say, "Yeah, but, you know, I was having such a good time at lunch, picked up a couple of other friends and we used your money buying lunch and all I had enough was to get you this." You'd say, "You stole my money," right?

If someone did that to you wouldn't you say, "You stole my money?" When you go and work for a person and agree to work for them for a certain amount of money, and you don't give them a full day's work, I don't care how much the money is, the money isn't the issue. It's you that's the issue, who you are. And you don't give them a full day's work, you're stealing from the employer. You're stealing their time. "Here. I'm going to pay you to work for me." "Thank you. I'll take the money and I won't work." It's stealing. There's a point of dishonesty here. So we don't think that way. There's a point of dishonesty.

Ways that we waste time at work. "Oh good, another survey." No, I'm going to go to the Bible. Proverbs 14, a couple of places in Proverbs. Proverbs 14. There's a lot of benefits to work in our character and even some happiness. We'll talk about that in a minute. Proverbs 14:23. "In all labor, there is profit." There's a benefit from work. And once again, being a workaholic isn't the issue here. It's working that's the issue. When you are supposed to work you work.

"In all labor there's profit, but an idle chatter leads only to poverty." In other words, you spend all your time talking at work, on your computer at work, unless you're working on a computer, obviously, texting at work, sharing all your different plans and, you know, getting together all the people you're going out to dinner with afterwards, and you do all that while at work. You can end up in poverty because you're not going to have a job. You say, "Boy, that employer sure is mean and tough. What's their problem?" Now, remember, they paid you to work. They offered you money to work and you agreed to it. If you don't like the agreement, quit but don't steal from them.

You know, you're going to get in a bad job some point in life too. Once again, if you have the right character, if you have the tools, you'll be able to get out of a bad job. If you don't have the tools, guess what happens? "I can't get out of a bad job because I can't get any job," or you quit and end up what, doing nothing. I've seen people quit jobs. I knew a man one time who had been fired… I don't remember the exact number… It's been so many years ago. This was, like, 35 years ago. But I think he'd been fired from 12 jobs in 16 years all because of the Sabbath. I don't believe that. You might lose a job or two over the Sabbath, but if you're a good employee, you're going to find a job someplace. I think he's a bad employee. Now, a couple of times might be over the Sabbath but I don't believe all of them were.

Look at Proverbs 12:11. "He who tills his land will be satisfied with bread, but he who follows frivolity is devoid of understanding." In otherwise words, he who just…"All I want to do is have fun." Well, there's a time for fun, by the way, God is not against fun. There's a time for fun. And it's great when your work is fun, too. I mean, I have fun times at my job sometimes, and sometimes it's not. But when you just pursue having fun, instead of getting joy out of your work, he says, you don't understand what's going to happen to you. It doesn't work that way.

Proverbs 19:15 "Laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger." In other words, when we are lazy, you know what happens? We get tired all the time. We lose a desire to achieve anything. Part of work is achieving something. It's achieving something. Now, some of you remember a couple of years ago, I kept using the example of how I told my wife I would paint the bathroom and then didn't do it. Okay. Well, I don't know, about nine months ago, I painted the bathroom, okay. But I have to tell you when I finished painting the bathroom… she wasn't there I thought I'd surprise her. And I looked around and I thought, "I really feel good about this." And then she walked in and said, "It needs another coat." So I put another coat on, and I felt good about that, too, right. When you accomplish something, you feel good and that is worth… You know, sometimes you don't work because of your boss and you don't work because of the money. Sometimes you work because in the end, "I did a good job. I did that." It's your character that counts. It's who you are that counts. And so you do what's right. Otherwise, you just get… the more lazy you are… Here's the strangest thing. You ever say, "Oh, I wish I had a day off with nothing to do."

Yeah, I do that and every once in a while I try to take a day off with nothing to do. And it's okay for a while then I start getting antsy and sort of nervous and sort of crazy like and then… then I have to tell myself, "Settle down. There's work to do tomorrow. It's okay." So you can't be a workaholic either. But it's funny, if I had nothing to do all the time, I'd be miserable. Wouldn't you? If you had nothing, no goals, nothing to do, nothing to achieve, you'd be miserable.

"Oh, I just wish somebody would take care of me." No, you don't, you wouldn't live life with somebody just taking care of you every moment. We're not designed to be that way. We're designed to go work and produce and achieve. All of us are every human being. Or we just get sleepy.

A fourth point is that a proper work ethic means that we exhibit a very high standard of honesty and morality. Let's go to Titus 2. Titus 2, I'm going to read this from the NIV. In the King James, it says bondservants here which is more of an employee relationship. But here in this translation… this is Titus 2:9. "Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not talk back to them." Okay, you just don't talk back to your employer all the time. Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't give good suggestions. Most employers want a good… I mean, you might get some hard-nosed person that doesn't. But most employers want a good suggestion if they can see it's good. "Hey, if we do this would this make this better?" You know, because they know you now hey, you're concerned about the job. You're concerned about what you're doing. Your work is important to you. But he says, "And not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive." He says you be so honest, such a good upstanding person, such a moral person, that you make Christianity attractive to pagans.

"Boy, I wish I had more Christians like you working, you know, for me because you're good workers. I can trust you, people. You're not going to steal from me. I'm not going to have to worry because I can't figure out why.” You know, “I just bought a box of copy paper and half of it it's gone." "Oh yeah, I took it home. You know, my kids use it." That's stealing. And so we are to make… It's so fascinating here. Paul over and over again says, remember when you're out there working who you represent. Be moral and be honest. We should be very, very, very honest.

And don't think they don't notice. People notice whether you're honest or not. They do. They will notice whether you're honest or not. And this is more important than your job title. This is more important than how much money you make, your honesty. I've seen Christians sacrifice their honesty for more money, or sacrifice their honesty to get a higher position. And that's not what this is about. That higher position or more money means nothing to God. Honesty means something to God. So don't buy into this sort of American dream. "The more power and money I have, the more important I am to God," because that's not true. It's just not true. It's who you are as His child that's important to Him.

Let me just sort of wrap up with a few things here. Why do we work then? Okay, we work to… What's our benefit, if you will, from working? Constructive work gives us a sense of purpose and a sense of accomplishment in your daily life. You know, I'm 63. I know a lot of men and women that retire at 65. I couldn't imagine retiring at 65. I can't even imagine… I’ve got so much more to accomplish. In fact, I'm getting to the place that I'm even more serious about what I have to accomplish because, well, you know, I don't have a lot of time left here. I'm going to live another 30 years. I got more things to accomplish.

And so this constructive work gives us a sense of accomplishment. Even if our boss… see once again it's you get a benefit from working. What did God tell Adam and Eve? Go to Genesis 2:15. Genesis 2. It's a very important passage here. "Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend it and to keep it." "You are to work this garden." He didn't say, “Oh, here's the garden. It'll sort of grow itself. Just let everything run wild, it'll be fine." He says, "You are to tend it and to keep it." "You have work to do here, son, and you're going to like working. You're going to get up in the morning and you're going to enjoy going out and tending the garden." Without a sense of accomplishment, without things to do, Adam would have been bored, even in Eden. We are designed to accomplish things.

There's a study that was done in Harvard. And it's an interesting study because the first time I read of this study was in the 1980s. And it had started kind of back in the 1940s. I just read this week because I was looking at the study. The study continues on. Some of the people involved in this study in the 1940s are still alive and they're still studying them, these people at Harvard. The people who started the original study are all dead it's new, but they've been studying these… I think it was 465 boys. And they were all from inner-city, Boston. And they had all different backgrounds, and all different economic backgrounds, and educational backgrounds, and ethnic backgrounds. You know, they're just from all over the place. And so they started to go through them. What were they like at 15 or where were they at 25? So in the 1980s, these guys are in their 40s and 50s. Well, they're in their 50s at this point. And they found some very interesting things.

Now, as they continued on as they got older, into their ‘70s and ‘80s now, and '90s, they found that there were two things that changed their lives more than anything. One was the quality of relationships they had when they were younger. Were there adults who loved them or not? Oh, yeah that makes sense, doesn't it? That was the most… The number one impact on their lives, whether there were adults that loved them and interacted with them as children. The second one was whether they had work to do as a child.

You say, "Oh, we just put our kids in the salt mines." This was as simple as mowing the grass. It was as simple as cleaning your room. And in doing so, they found out that these young boys who had interactive relationships, people who actually cared for them, and taught them and interacted with them, and then they were made to work. Those were the two greatest factors in their success of life and how happy they were.

People who work and put themselves into their work are happier. They're not bored. They have purpose. And like I said, these jobs were just… "Okay, you're 15. Go get a job," you know. No. It could be as simple as, "Okay, you have chores, and you have to take out the garbage and you participate in what the family does." Or sometimes a lot… These boys came from broken families. Still, there was always some adults somewhere that interacted with them in a positive way. And they always had some value in their work. "I'm producing something, and as I produce something, I have value. I produce something and therefore I have value." And as they grew up that changed their lives.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your children… the greatest gift you can give your children is your love and your time. A second greatest gift you can give them is teaching them God's way. Now, you have to give them love and time before you can teach them God's way. "Okay, we're going to have school today. I'm going to teach you God's way and the rest of the time I'm going to ignore you." That doesn't work. You give them love and time first, and that builds the relationship that you can say, "let me tell you about God," and it means something.

If we don't give our children of ourselves, then somebody else gives them of themselves. And it's probably be the other kid next door. You see what I mean? We can't let other people raise our children. We have to give them our love and our time. Then the second most important thing you could do is give them God's way and teach it and live it for them. And the third most important thing you can do, make them do some chores, make them do some work. That there's purpose in work. There's meaning and work.

I could remember my dad telling me… we’re sanding floors, which is hard work. I was a teenager. He said, yeah, he says, "I worked hard, worked hard. My dad pushed me and pushed me. Because he was pushing me all the time. “Do this better. Work harder, do this,” you know, just all the time. He said that one day, he said, “Okay, you got to finish this job.” And he left. And he said, I thought, "Good. I'm going to take a cigarette break." Because he was a chain smoker before he came into the Church. He said, “But I couldn't. I tried, and I couldn't light it I had to go finish the job."

So when I was about 17, one day he said, "You got to finish the job." I said, "Oh, good." And when he showed up I'm just finishing it. And he said, "Yeah, that's what I figured how long would it take you to finish it." I thought, "Yeah, I just finished the job." He did the same thing to me that his dad did to him. We have to realize we teach them to work. And I sure was proud of that floor. I still remember it. I still remember that it was a Lebanese club and they had, like, a meeting room, ballroom in it. And that looked like a sheet of glass. That floor had been just sanded perfectly and finished perfectly. And it looked like… And I still remember that. I was probably 17 years old. I don't remember any of the girls when I was 17. But I remember that floor.

A secondary reason we work is to support our families. This is important to God. 1 Timothy 5:8. I don't remember any girls because it seems to me that I've been married… it seems to me, I've known my wife since I was a baby. It seems somehow we've been connected since we were children. I know that's not true. But it seems to me that way. So I don't remember anybody else. Yeah, she's always been there. 1 Timothy 5:8. "But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Think about that statement. If you can work… Now, once again, sometimes we can't work or sometimes we're limited at what we can do or sometimes we just don't have opportunities.

I mean, sometimes you look at some… Darris McNeely just got back from a trip to Africa. And some of those people are doing as hard as they can and there's only so much money they can bring in. You can work 15 hours a day and you're never going to get out of a dirt hut. But they work, you know. You do your part. He's saying here the person says, "Nah, take care of me." He says you're worse than a person that's not even a Christian. See how much he ties this into our Christianity?

We have responsibilities. We work for other people. You know, and I will speak to the young men here. Guys, young men, when you marry and you have children, and especially if your wife says, "I need to stay home and take care of those children," your God-given responsibility is to take care of them. I don't care what the cost. If we can't do that don't get married and don't have children. Be man enough not to do it. Our responsibility is to take care of those if they need us. And, you know, sometimes women will have careers and then have two or three children say, "I can't do this. I can't do both of them." And we man up. How many hours a week do you work to do that? As many as it takes. As many as it takes. That's what we do.

And if we aren't willing to do that, you're not worthy of a wife. It's that simple. That's what Paul is saying. There's a loss of manhood that I'm concerned with. We sacrifice what we have to sacrifice for our families. That's part of work. Now, fortunately, hopefully, you have a job you don't have to do all that. But believe me, I know years ago, when I was a kid, I saw men work two or three jobs to feed a family, not because they had a great career. They worked two or three jobs just to feed a family. They would do whatever it took.

People had bigger families. The woman couldn't work. She had six kids. And that's what they did. Did they want to work three jobs? No. Why did they do it? It's what we do. We work to help those who are in financial need. I know sometimes some of these ideas are not popular in our society. The destruction of manhood is one of the most terrible things that's happened to our country. And now what's happening is destruction of womanhood. I mean, what God expects of women. If you destroy the men, what are the women going to do, right, what choice do they have?

And now where we have little three-year-olds that have decided that they're of a different sex. And parents who say, "Okay." A society cannot survive that, understand that. A society cannot survive that. Oh, it won't fall tomorrow, but it will fall. That is totally against the way anything is worked. Even the pagans knew that much. Even the ancient pagans knew that much.

Ephesians 4:28, "Let him who stole steal no more." So he's just telling people in church look, you got to change your… you know, if you used to be a thief, you're a Christian now. You got to stop being a thief. But notice what he says, "But rather let him labor, working with his hands, what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need." Paul actually says to people in the Church, "Okay, not stealing is the letter of the law. You and I have to go way beyond the letter of the law." He says, "Go work so you can help somebody else and give them a hand up. Go work so you can give to somebody else. Somebody gives you a hand up you go work and get somebody…" It's not, like, "Oh, good, somebody give me a hand up," keep giving your hand out. No. If someone gives you a hand up you go work and give somebody else a hand up. You and I are required by God to help each other in our times of need, and our times of poverty, and our times of old age, and our times of widowhood. We are required to help each other. It's at the center of God's way, that kind of love. And he says, start in the Church of God's, start in the house of God. And obviously with our own families, whether they're in the Church or not. That's where we just start.

And then the last reason, of course, is you and I have a duty to pay tithes and offerings to God. It's a duty. We should work because we wish to fulfill that duty. The work habits we form are part of our character. It's part of who we are. This is practical Christianity. "Wow, you've made looking at my cell phone, at my desk, some church issue." "No, it's practical Christianity. This isn't a church issue. It's Christianity issue." Work is important. And every day you have an opportunity when you go to work to be dependable and responsible and to show people what a Christian looks like. We're honest, we work hard, we're trustworthy. Those are all words that came up in what we've talked about here.

Also, you could be a whole lot happier when you just work hard. I don't care what it is. Scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets. I mean I think of all the things I've done in my life, sanding floors, painting houses. Well, I did have one job I failed miserably at. It was being a roofer. And the guy hired me… his son hired me and I said, "I don't know anything about roofing. I know nothing." He said, "Yeah, well, don't tell my dad. We just need some guys to work." So I spent 12 hours on the roof, trying to watch everybody else and figure out what they were doing. So at the end, the guy said, "You know, you're a hard worker, but you know absolutely nothing about roofing." And I said, "I know I don't." He says, "Well, I'm going to pay you because you're a hard worker, but I got to hire somebody that knows about roofing." I said, "I understand. I didn't tell your son I knew anything about roofing." And of course, they all laughed. They thought it was sort of funny. I was so glad I got fired from that job. I hated that job. But you know, I wasn't going to quit. I had told him I'd work the summer. I was going to work the summer and I thought, "By the end of summer I'll figure out how to be a roofer." But I was so glad I didn't have to figure out how to be a roofer. But I said I would. You know why I was going to do that? Not because I have great character because my dad had drilled me so much I had to finish the job. Even it was going to be all summer, I was going to learn how to be a roofer. So I was glad. And don't ask me to roof because I have no idea how to do that.

But these things make us happier. And it's these things that make up our work ethic. These are the traits that God is looking for. And these are the traits, not your job, but these character traits that God is going to use to serve Jesus Christ when He comes.

One of the things that came to mind as I thought about a sermon for this afternoon is just the challenges our little ones will face. We live in a world that has certainly changed so much over the last few decades, and even in just the last couple of years. And when you think about the way the Bible describes that, it tells us that we are in a battle, that we are in a spiritual war. 2 Corinthians 10 certainly describes that.

And it is a critical battle that, you know, as you think about our little ones that we certainly have to keep in mind that this isn't just any ordinary kind of thing. This is a sinister war that is going on, and it is certainly in full force against us. And if we cave to the attacks that are out there against us, it's something that can decimate our families. It can take down as we see what's happening in our nation.

We see a change in morality that has really taken our nation down. And in so many ways, we don't know which way to go. We've lost our way as a people. And so when we consider that, you know, this is a fight that is a spiritual battle. We know Ephesians 6 describes, we're not fighting flesh and blood. We are fighting spiritual wickedness, and we are fighting for the truth. We are fighting for what is moral. We are fighting for what is ethical, and we are striving to live godly principles.

And we see the casualties around us. It doesn't take too much to recognize what's been going on. The casualties are in integrity. Where is integrity today? Where is honesty today? Where is justice today? You see, these are godly principles. And so we recognize this isn't something that's just a force against our country and our culture around us. This is a battle for our family. Our families are at stake, and there is definitely a war on our little ones, a war on our children and our grandchildren.

Because day after day, they are bombarded with all these ideas that are contrary to God's way. It's everywhere in our world today with thoughts and images. It is something that surrounds us. It's on our phones, it's on our television, it is on...everywhere. It's everywhere. And we see there's no recognition for most people. But it's something that God certainly wants us to recognize. He wants us to see the battlefield that's before us, and He describes it many times throughout Scripture.

There's an apt description in Isaiah 59. If you'd like to turn there with me, I'd like to begin there this afternoon. Look at the description of the battlefield that we face, that our little ones that we ask God's blessing on today, that are facing in a way that as adults, we never face these things. Isaiah 59 is certainly a description of our culture, our world, and that battlefield that is before us. Notice what it says here.

Isaiah 59:1-3 It says, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear." There is hope. We have hope in our great and awesome God. If we trust in Him and follow Him, He is ready to save. He is ready to intervene. But we see the challenge here, verse 2, "Your iniquities have separated you from your God. Your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. Your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken lies, your tongue mutters wicked things. No one calls for justice. No one pleads his case with integrity. They rely on empty arguments and speak lies. They conceive trouble and give birth to evil."

Now, the challenge is, in a way, we are here on the Sabbath to take a stand against these things, to stand for what's right, to stand for God's truth, to stand for justice and morality, to show it doesn't have to be the way Isaiah describes it. It doesn't have to be like that.

And so as adults, as teenagers, as children, we have to face these challenges and obstacles, and maybe past generations never had to deal with the things that we've had to deal with and we face today. And so God reminds us, we have to do something about it. We can't just stand idly by and watch it happen. So, as parents and as grandparents, we have to counter the assault that's being waged against our families, against our children.

We have to go on a counter-offensive in a sense and put a stop to these attacks and not allow them to take our families, to take our children. And today, we recognize that children aren't taught the difference between right and wrong. What is objective morality? You see today it's all about, well, how do you feel? What's your opinion? Well, your opinion is just as valid as the next person's opinion. And everything then becomes a shade of gray.

And so we have to be tolerant of everyone, any lifestyle, any philosophy, any opinion. And in fact, it's not even that today. It's not just being tolerant of those things. Now we have to be approving of those things because it's not just good enough to say, "Well, that's okay for you. I don't want anything to do with." No, you can't do that anymore. Today it's you have to say, "Well, whatever that immoral thing may be, that's good for them. That's a good thing. That's their choice."

And yet, when we look at the Word of God, it's not that way at all. We have to stand against these things, stand up for what's right from God's perspective. And so when we consider that, we recognize we need a sense of direction. I mean, our children getting a sense of direction today. Well, before you say no, they are. They are getting a sense of direction, but it's a wrong one. It's a wrong one.

And so they're being taught a humanistic type of philosophy that counters the Bible, counters the truth of God's Word. And so we see the evidence of that all around us. We see the value of pride that is in our nation today, personal choice, far above and beyond personal responsibility, whatever you want to do, we see that evidence. We see popularity over reliability. We find that we choose those things that we feel we have the freedom to choose.

And we choose over the responsibility to do what should be done, not just the value of making a choice. And so we see so many that have lost their way. And we can be vulnerable to that too. We don't want to kid ourselves because, if we allow the culture and society, the world, to infiltrate our thinking, it can undermine the blessings that God wants to pour out upon us. You know, when we look at what's taught today that we can choose our gender, is that biblical? Is that godly?

We know there's parents that are raising “theybies”. Have you heard of this? It's not babies. It's “theybies” because it's not a he or a she. No, we don't want to use those personal pronouns. It's they and them and their, rather than he or she or him or her. Is that biblical? You see, I understand people don't get it. They don't recognize these things, but it just shows us how far removed we've come from Biblical truth.

We look at our nation today. We have so many states where schools now give guidance on inclusion of the transgender and non-conforming students. We don't even have to tell our parents that their children are making these choices. Well, is that biblical? Is that godly? We now face that in our curriculum today, that the SOGI curriculum is everywhere. It's all around us. It's required in Canada, the SOGI, “sexual orientation and gender identity”, as a three or four-year-old, you can choose your identity.

You can choose what you want to be. But is that flowing with the instruction that God gives us in His world? You see, I think we've gotten to this point because yesterday we decided to exclude God from our culture. And by excluding God, He's not guiding us in that same way. We don't want to follow that guidance. And so it certainly is a reminder for us that we cannot fail in our responsibility, our God-given responsibility to follow His will, to follow His Word, to be, well, as Christ described, we're to be the salt of the earth.

We're to be sprinkled among this culture, standing for what's right and holding ourselves to the standard of God because God does hold us accountable. So, are we contributing to standing for what's right, or are we contributing to the downfall? It's a question each of us as parents, we certainly need to ask, as a church, we need to ask ourselves. And is it even possible then to combat these things? How do we do that within our families?

How can we fight the system? You know, how can we make sure that our children aren't vulnerable to these attacks? And as children, we need to ask ourselves, "How can I live God's way? How can I stand for what's right?" I think it comes down to defending our family. We must defend the family. And so as parents, are we defending our families? Are you defending your family? Are we upholding God's standards?

A couple of things we should keep in mind to recognize. Are we putting things in the right priority? If we're going to defend our families, first and foremost, put first things first. What is the priority in our life? I mean, it's kind of cliché to say, "Well, put God first in your life." Yeah, we've all heard that. We should do that. We know as Christians, that's not an option, that's a requirement. We need to do that. But do we really make that happen in our families?

As we think about these little ones, as they're going to grow up and face unbelievable challenges, we certainly have been given the responsibility to teach them. And so how do they learn? How do they learn wisdom? How do they learn common sense? How do they learn God's way? Well, does it happen just naturally? Is it by osmosis? Is it just come automatically? See, I think we know that's not the case at all. They learn because they see it and they hear it over and over and over again.

And so when we consider that, we are all expected to be a shining light, a shining light to the congregation, a shining light to these little ones among us. And so as a ministry, we better be shining a light. As members, we better be shining the light, and we are illustrating God's way. And sometimes when we consider role models, we think of those types of things. We think of a minister or a teacher, a coach, other adults. But when you really get down to it, where is the primary influence for our little ones?

It's moms and dads. It's our families. It's our families. And we are told to put first things first in our families. Powerful section of Scripture in Deuteronomy 6. It certainly points this out so well. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 6:4. Here we have some key instruction when it comes to putting God first in our families. If we are to fight this battle that we've been called to, we recognize it is a spiritual battle. And our children, our families are at risk. And we have to fight and defend our families, defend off the impact of the world around us. And so God gives us the key. He gives us the key here in Deuteronomy 6 when it comes to the impact on our children, on our families. Notice what He says here.

Deuteronomy 6:4 It says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength."

So, as a congregation, as a parent, we have to do these things. First things first, priority one, God's got to come first in our life, and there has to be evidence that we do these things. He says here, "These words which I command you shall be in your heart." This is who we are. It's not just what we believe, but it's who we are. It's our identity. It's how we act, it's how we live, it's how we think that has to be evidenced. And then by extension, it reaches out to our family. And so He says in verse 7 then.

Deuteronomy 6:7 "You shall teach them diligently to your children."

But parents, if it's not in our heart, how can we pass that on? If we don't understand and if we're not living that way, how can we possibly pass them on? And so priority one has to be in place first, then we teach our children. And specifically, we're told how, how do we do this?

Deuteronomy 6:7-9 Well, it says, "Talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand. And they shall be frontlets between your eyes." So, no matter where you look, God's way is right there. It says, "Write them on the doorpost of your house, when you're in your home, when you're going out of your home, you can't get around the fact that you are living God's way, and it should be on your gate as well."

And so we're told, "Teach them diligently." That teaching diligently is actually just one Hebrew word. It's just one word, two words in English. But it literally means to sharpen, like you were to wet a sword or a knife. Like you hone it. And so you make it extremely sharp. You sharpen it. You teach it diligently. It's not just that you have a knife or a sword. That's not going to help you if it's dull. And so you've got to hone that thing. And so teaching diligently shows that concept of honing them in God's way, shining as God's people, instilling it in our children by living it and breathing it over and over, reciting and impressing and repeating it. Repetitive, best form of emphasis, right? And so we do that in our families.

And so when we consider what this text is really getting to, we recognize this is something that doesn't come automatically. It's not something that just happens naturally, loving God, putting His way into practice. We're told it has to be taught. And where? Where's the primary place? The family. The family is the God-given place to teach God's obedience, to teach God's way, to show His love. And so parents, this is our responsibility. We've been given this responsibility by God and we've got to take that to heart. And it also tells us as children, as children, we have a responsibility, we're supposed to learn. So, parents teach, children learn. And oftentimes we've heard examples of that. There was one example, as an illustration to this, that I had read a little bit about. Someone had basically said that children are kind of like a blank slate when they come into this world.

You have these innocent little babies that all of life is before them. Almost maybe like a flash drive we might think of it today. You buy a flash drive at the store, it's empty, but you can fill that thing up with all kinds of information that it will hold. And children are ready. They are ready for input. They're clean and they're fresh. Christ use them as an amazing example of purity in that sense. And so how are we going to then give this input and guidance to our children?

Can be a scary thing as well. You know, Lennon said, "Give me a child until he's seven and he'll be mine forever." Yeah, not in a good way is what he was talking about. He could mold them in his way. And so we've heard the proverbs that teach us those things, you know, as the twig is bent, so the child grows, so grows the tree. And so it is certainly like that. And so here we see in Deuteronomy that God is saying spiritual values must be learned in the family.

And so I think it begs the question, what's your home like? What's it like to live in your home? Is it a place where God is honored? Is it a place where God is worshiped? Is it a place where godly values are upheld? Can we truly say our home is a godly home? Certainly, we're shown here in Deuteronomy, it's something that's an everyday pursuit, something we have to go after and pursue every single day. That is something that's going to take initiative.

It's something that means we're going to have to be intentional because it's not going to automatically happen. Moms and dads, it doesn't happen. It's going to take endurance. It's going to take dedication. And no matter how much progress we make toward the goal of building a godly home, there's still a little better that we can do. We can even do more. And so in a sense, being a godly home, being godly people isn't so much a destination as it is a direction moving toward God and becoming more Christ-like.

That's the ultimate direction. And so the amazing part, we have that choice every day, every day in our homes, we can make that choice and decide, are we moving more toward God's likeness? Is that our direction? What direction is our home moving towards? I mean, we know. We know how much children pick things up and how amazing is that whole concept of how they learn and how quickly they pick things up from their environment.

What are they learning day to day? I think that's an important question to ask. What are we teaching today? What are we illustrating today? Kids ever mimic the things that adults do? Yeah, all the time. All the time, whether you like it or not, they mimic. Yeah, sometimes they're listening to mommy and daddy when they least expect it. And sometimes it can even be embarrassing. It can be embarrassing.

I heard a story about a little boy, mom and dad had invited the pastor over for dinner after services. And the little boy came up to the pastor and said, "I'm going to give you some money." And the pastor was kind of surprised. He said, "Well, okay, thanks, but why do you want to do that?" And the little boy said, "Well, my daddy said, you're the poorest preacher we've ever had." So, a reminder, yeah. Do they pick things up? Yeah, when you least expect it, they're expressed.

Do we realize parents what we're teaching our children? Okay, in our homes, our homes are supposed to be godly homes, but what are we teaching them when we're in traffic? What are we teaching them with our off-handed comments? What are we teaching them in our disagreements, mom and dad? What are we teaching them as they're watching us and taking these things in as we're shopping at the store or we're frustrated at that stoplight? What are they learning?

Are they learning, "Wow, mom and dad have put God first. Mom and dad are demonstrating that God is always on their mind, God is always there"? You see, when we recognize that, we realize we're teaching them in every circumstance, and we have to put first things first. If we don't, how well can the rest of the instruction go? I ran across an interesting illustration of this in the area of South Dakota. They found a stone that was discovered back in 1887.

It was called the Thoen Stone, the Thoen Stone for the people who discovered it. And it was a sandstone marker that a man named Ezra Kind had inscripted. He had scratched out a message on the stone. And it was an interesting one because it meant that gold had been discovered in South Dakota 40 years before Custer had come in 1874. So, this was kind of a new discovery, reason being this stone inscribed that very fact that they had discovered gold in 1833.

And so Ezra Kind scribbled something pretty amazing on this stone that kind of applies to our thinking, you know, through the sermon today. You know what the stone said, what he inscripted on this stone? It said, "Came to these hills in 1833 seven of us." Then it went on, and he scribed on this sandstone, "All killed by Indians but me. Our ponies all got by the Indians. I've lost my gun, nothing to eat. Indians hunting me."

Do you know what else he scribbled on that stone? "Got all the gold we could carry." What good was it? "Got all the gold we could carry but all my friends are dead." And evidently, he died as well. And as I heard that story, wow, unless you put first things first, what else matters? Nothing else matters. And so when we put this in a spiritual perspective, God certainly wants us to put first things first.

And as parents, showing God is our number one, teaching our children that very fact, training up a child in the way he should go, you know, as a proverb says, "When he is old, he will not depart from it." Proverbs 22:6 is certainly a reminder of that. And so it certainly reminds us of the fact that whose responsibility is it? Is it the church's responsibility? I mean, some would like to put that responsibility on God's church. Is it the minister's responsibility? Is it a church program that will save our kids?

No. No, it's not. It's not. And as we think about this, it's the parent's responsibility. Now, of course, the church has to support that. We back that up and programs aren't bad. Those are good things. But why don't some stay with the church? Why don't we retain our youth? Some would blame the church for that. Wait a second, not according to Scripture.

Scripture is saying, parents, if your children are growing up in a household where you are not demonstrating God's way, you're not living God's way, they come to church and they hear, well, this is the way it should be. This is supposed to be God's way. Then they come home and they see division in the household, they see arguments, they see ungodly lifestyle live before them. What do you think they're going to do? They're going to stick around because they don't see it modeled at home.

And so what's modeled at home has to match what they're learning at church as well. Proverbs 1:8 certainly is a reminder of that very fact. Proverbs 1 reminds us putting first things first in our families. As parents, we have to model godly behavior. God has to be in our heart. His Word has to be hidden in our heart. So, out of the abundance of our heart, our mouth speaks, our actions are illustrated. And Proverbs 1:8 certainly tells us, even as children, this should be our perspective.

Proverbs 1:8  "My son, hear the instruction of your father." So, teens, young adults, kids, hear the instruction of your father. “Don't forsake the law of your mother. There'll be a graceful ornament on your head and chains about your neck.”

So, when we're demonstrating God's way, this is the result. It says what you learn from your parents, you'll bring honor and respect. It'll bring honor and respect. It'll be like carrying around a gold medal. And so we can do these things.

God says by the power of His spirit, it's possible. We can be the ones that stand for God and we can help our families to serve God's purpose. And so we can stand strong. We can do these things. And so the challenge is we're pulled in so many different directions these days. We certainly know that the deceiver would love to take us off track because we've all got so much to do. There's so many things to accomplish. Work pulls us one direction, other responsibilities pull us another direction.

And oftentimes we might think of our life of all these different responsibilities we have, kind of like a big chest of drawers. You know, you've got a big chest and there's all these different drawers. And here's my father's drawer and here's my husband drawer, and here's my work drawer. Here's my church drawer. We've got all these various responsibilities that we strive to fulfill. And somehow I think we oftentimes put God in a drawer.

But that can't be the case. You know, when you think about that, it all works together. God is not just looking for a drawer in our life. That's just not the way it is. He's not just looking for, maybe I could be the top drawer in our life. That's not the case either. God's got to be the cabinet. God's got to be the cabinet, He doesn't deserve a position. He can't just have a place. He's got to have first place. He's got to be priority one. And there's such a difference that it makes such a huge difference.

And so where is God? God can't just be a Sabbath thing or a Friday night thing with our families. It's an ongoing everyday experience. And if it's not, then we've got to defend our family and take back our family from these influences around us. The Apostle Paul said it in a powerful way in Colossians 1. Colossians 1, as Paul writes to God's people in Colossi, he identifies us. They were under attack from many different fronts, much the same like us.

And it's interesting, as he begins this letter, I think of seek first the kingdom. Matthew 6:33 is on his mind as he writes to the Colossians because he encourages them with priority one. Not that God is a place, but He is first place. That God is not just a drawer in our life, but He is the cabinet in our life. That we're not just running around picking up all the gold, but we're doing first things first.

Colossians 1:10 "Walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. Strengthen in all might according to His glorious power for all patience and long-suffering with joy."

Those are pretty interesting descriptors there, aren't they? Do you notice those descriptive words, "Walking worthy of the Lord"? If we're going to walk worthy, please Him some of the time? Well, he says, "Fully pleasing Him. Well, bearing fruit once in a while? Well, he says, "Being fruitful in every good work, every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. Then in verse 11, what does he say?

Colossians 1:11 Strengthen occasionally during our spiritual exercises once...? No, he says, "Strengthen with all might." And then he says, "All patience, long-suffering, and joy."

And so he's given us our marching orders to defend the faith, to defend our family.

Colossians 1:13 He says, "He's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love."

And we've got to stay there. We've got to stay in His dwelling. And so God has to be priority number one. And that's why I spent a lot of time with number one. So, where is God? Where is God in our family? I think as we consider that, how do we defend our family? God's got to be priority one. We also have to recognize the fact it's time for family. It's time for family.

I don't mean that just as a castoff kind of. No, we've got to spend time with our family. And we know what life is like. It takes that time away from us. And we have to do it physically with our family, spending time, spiritually as well. Here we have an opportunity today to have a social and get to know each other better and draw near to each other. Yeah, that's time for our spiritual family. And God emphasizes this so many times, how important family is because we know ultimately God is creating a spiritual family.

Is family important to God? Absolutely. He's creating a huge spiritual family. He tells us spiritual values are taught at home. And in order for that to happen, you got to take the time. You got to make the time. And the challenge is our time gets stolen all too often, doesn't it? And we get farther and farther away from our families. If you want to turn with me back to Deuteronomy 6 for a moment. Look at verse 17.

Verse 17 is such a reminder of an important principle when it comes to this because we know those phrases that oftentimes come up, "Well, I have an absentee father." Well, what does that mean? Well, they're not around. And when there aren't parents around, what happens? Well, what would happen according to God if our parents don't do what they're supposed to do? If they're not around doing their responsibilities, what's the result going to be?

Well, I heard an example of this was in bowling. Anyone like bowling? Yeah, I hate bowling myself. I'm no good at it. There was somebody that said one time, "I can bowl a 300 every time." Well, that's a perfect game. Strike every single time. It's like, what? How is that possible? Definitely. Well, maybe if they put those bumpers up and it diverted the ball right to the center and I could knock them, maybe that would do it.

No, but they said, instead of being back 60 feet, if I just get 5 feet away, I can bowl a strike every single time. Yeah, that's cheating though, isn't it? But here's the point. The farther I get away, the worse my score. So, if I get back at 60 feet, there's no way I'm going to get a perfect game. Error increases with distance. The farther you get away, the easier it is to mess things up. Same thing is true for family, isn't it? The farther remove mom and dad are from their family, the better the chance for error.

And so, yeah, today is Satan's world. He's on the throne of this world right now. He's the god of this age, and he would love to mess up family that we can't even identify where the family is these days it seems. And most of us, he's done a great job of getting us out of the house. Most families need two incomes to keep their family floating above water financially. And so that takes us out of the home.

Well, how do you spend the right kind of time with your family? I mean, sometimes you've heard, "Well, I can't be there all the time, but I spend quality time with my family, with my kids." "Well, I can't have a quantity of time. So, it's a quality of time." And I think we got to be a little careful with that, don't we? I think when you look at what Deuteronomy says, it kind of refutes that idea that, well, quality time is good enough. You don't want to think that way. Look at Deuteronomy 6:17. He says this a second time.

Deuteronomy 6:17-18 "You shall diligently keep them. You sharpen them in your minds. You keep the commandments of the Lord your God, His testimonies, the statutes, which He commanded you." And then it says, "You shall do what's right and good in the side of the Lord that it may be well with you, that you may go in and possess the good land, which the Lord swore for to your Fathers."

Of course, to us, that's the ultimate promise land, the kingdom of God. Emphasizing once again, priority one, what should be first? God's got to come first in our lives, no doubt. But it's interesting, then He also says to cast out all your enemies.

Deuteronomy 6:19 "All your enemies from before you as the Lord has spoken."

We face enemies. They're not Canaanites, they're not Philistines. But boy, do we face spiritual enemies out there today, things that would take us away from our families. But if we bow down to that pressure and we separate and we increase that distance between families and our family members, there's going to be error. Our family will be more easily attacked. And it tells us here.

Deuteronomy 6:20 "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What's the meaning of these testimonies, the statutes, the judgements, which the Lord your God commanded you?"

Well, when can you answer that? When you're there. Can you ever predict when that question might come up? I don't know. Can you predict a teachable moment? I think that's pretty hard to predict. If you're not around when that situation comes up, where are they going to turn for the answer? They're going to look to you. And so I think as you look through Deuteronomy 6, it tells us we've got to make it our goal to spend a quantity of quality time as much as we possibly can.

That has to be at the forefront of our minds so that when these things come up, we are there. We're demonstrating them on a daily basis. You know, hour by hour, we're demonstrating God's way, we're teaching them. And then when those times come up, we're there. We are there for those moments when the questions come up. And those are wonderful opportunities that we have.

And so I think God is really telling us, "Don't let the error increase with distance. Shorten that up and stay close. Stay close in our family," which also means as a people, collectively, as a congregation, we have that responsibility to spend a quantity of quality time and take advantage of every opportunity to be together. Because we know there's going to be a lot more pressure coming. There's going to be tribulation. It's already on the horizon.

Are we going to be able to be together so that when these challenges come, we're a family and nothing's going to separate us? And we can have these times to stay together because we've done it before. We can count on each other because we have that experience and we can be together. And so I think it points to this fact that this quantity of quality time will bring us together, especially when it's a quantity of, again, quality of spiritual time together.

Because as Deuteronomy is pointing out, this other aspect of defending our family means our home has to be a spiritual one. Yes, put priority one first in place. God's got to be number one. We can defend our family certainly by spending time together, but that also means then that time together has to be in a spiritual household. The church is the house of God. We're supposed to be housing the spirit of God individually and collectively as well.

So, how much more then should our family and our home be a spiritual home? And I think in that way, it's causing us to rethink the definition of what is spiritual. What is spiritual? You know, what do you think of when you think of a spiritual home? Anything particularly come to mind? Well, maybe some of it is family gets together. It's Friday night, the Sabbath is beginning and we're going to sit down. We've had a wonderful meal, the television's off, our Bibles are open. We're having a discussion about God's way.

Yeah, certainly, life would be so much better if you could spend that extra time, not only on the Sabbath, but every day in a spiritual activity like that. That'd be great. That would be wonderful. But we don't want to limit it to that, do we? I don't think that's what Deuteronomy is telling. Yes, that's important. No doubt we have a responsibility to instruct our families in God's way. Absolutely. But I think there's another aspect to making our home a spiritual place, is making sure we don't divide ourselves.

Don't divide our lives into a secular aspect and a sacred aspect. You know, we have a godly aspect and one that's just all the rest of our activities that we have to go through. Yeah, we have to diligently teach them, but what about living them? What about putting them into place? What about being that example? You know, we sit down and we have a family Bible study. We talk about all these wonderful attributes that we are to have, what the fruit of the spirit is.

Wow, we get it all down. We've memorized Galatians 5. That's wonderful. That's a very good thing. But then we walk away and we're whining and we're complaining and we're grumbling with each other. And as parents, we're demonstrating impatience. What? We're not living that spiritual home. And so when we think about demonstrating the things that our children see, not just talking the talk, but walking that walk so that they're learning these things and they're learning God's way, but they're also recognizing it demonstrated.

They're seeing an object lesson before their eyes every single day. They see a mom and dad expressing love and care and concern to each other. They're learning how to handle difficulties in a proper way, in a godly way. You see, God's called us to model Christ-like behavior. And so it's not just about teaching godly values, but it's about living godly values. So, are we exhibiting those things in our family so that we are patient when it's easy to be impatient?

Are we caring when we get frustrated and irritated with people? Can we model those types of things and put spiritual behavior on display? You see, that's what God's called us to do. And in a way, we've got to learn to lip sync. Everybody knows about lip-syncing? Yeah, that's right. You know, you know the words to the song, and you mouth those words all along with it. You match the lips with the song that's being sung or sometimes the words that are being spoken.

Yeah, you are right there with it. The better you do it, the more it looks like that's exactly what they're saying or singing. The reason I bring that up is that not only our lips, but our lives have to be synchronized. Lip syncing is synchronization. They have to be in sync. Not just the words that we say or the concepts that we're teaching as spiritual ones, but our lives have to be in sync with the words that we're saying. The things that we're professing has to be together.

And so when we consider that, what we say and how we live have to be totally in sync. That's what we're called to do. That's how we model a spiritual home. And so as we do those things, that means we're going to be able to demonstrate these things. Because all around us, it's demonstrated the wrong way. We see in society today, our world today, people going around all backwards. It's all in reverse.

And I was reminded about this just the other day, was trying to mow my lawn and my mower was doing a terrible job. I finally flipped it over and realized that I must have hit a bunch of rocks along the way or didn't care what I was running over. And that blade needed to be sharpened, but I couldn't do it because the gas is all leaking out as I'm tipping the mower upside down. So, I was like, I got to take that blade off.

So, you know, being the expert repair man I am, I got out, you know, that socket kit and got that wrench going and I was cranking on that lawnmower blade, and it wouldn't come off. It wouldn't come off for anything. It's like, "What is this righty tidy, lefty loosey? Yeah, yeah, I got it." Just yanking on that thing and it wouldn't move. It would not move. Fortunately, there's Google and you can google some of these things. And you know what it says, "More than likely, your lawnmower blade has a reverse thread."

It's backwards. So, what am I doing? I'm yanking and pushing and I'm tightening the blade. I'm making it worse. I'm putting all this effort into something that needed to be accomplished but I'm making it worse. Till I finally realize, "Okay, we can go the other way and flip the wrench the other direction and start cranking on the lug nut in the right way." I think that's oftentimes our frustration, is that, yeah, we're trying hard. We're active. We're doing but things don't get better.

Sometimes it gets harder, it gets more stressful, it gets more difficult. And life sometimes seems to tighten up around us. But I think when you consider this reverse thread, that's our calling. We're called to live life in reverse from the rest of the world. They're living life and struggling through difficulties and don't have a concept of what God's will and His way is.

Well, as we do, we've got to make sure we're turning the wrench in the right direction. You know, the world's going to tell you, "Hey, get all the gold you can get. Pick up everything you can get." And you know, like that expedition, they lost their life. Yeah. But God says give. "Give and it will be given to you." You know, life says the powerful, the strong, they're the ones that are going to survive. But God's way says, "Hey, the meek are going to inherit the earth."

And so when you think in reverse, the demonstration of what the world lives and their priorities have to be so different from us. Somebody hurts you, you make sure you get even. You pour it onto them. You make sure you get your revenge. But God says, "Uh-oh, it's a reverse thread. You know, turn the other cheek. Do good to those who mistreat you." And so oftentimes we have to step back and maybe we don't have to google it, open your Bible, take a look at what it says.

It says, "Hey, wait, are you turning the wrench the right direction? Are you living life in the right direction or striving to live the opposite way?" The book of Hebrews says a little bit about that in Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12:5. It's a powerful section of Scripture here as it talks about putting our faith into action, putting that faith into action and running the race that God has called us to the kind of people we're supposed to be as God's people, as parents, grandparents, even as young adults, teens, children.

Certainly, this calls that to mind in the perspective of how we are called and what we're supposed to be doing as we live our life. Hebrews 12:5. I'm going to read this from the message translation so it may be a little bit different from your New King James or your King James.

Hebrews 12:5-8 It says, "Have you forgotten how good parents treat children? Have you forgotten how good parents treat children and that God regards you as His children?" So, here's a godly example before our eyes. “My dear child, don't shrug off God's discipline. Don't be crushed by it either. If the child He loves, He disciplines, that child He embraces and He also corrects. God is educating you. That's why you must never drop out. He's treating you as dear children. The trouble that you're in isn't punishment. It's training, the normal experience for children. Only irresponsible parents leave children to fend for themselves. Would you prefer an irresponsible God? We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God's training so that we can truly live? So that we can truly live."

And ultimately, that's our goal. The reverse thread of this world wants us to ignore God, wants us to ignore our parents, but God reminds us how important family is. And our spiritual father is so critical in all of this. And so we honor the position of father and mother in our households because it's a God-given responsibility.

And we recognize the fact that we have to teach our children. We teach our children to love God, to love His way. Not just God's law, but we teach God's bounty. We teach God's care. We teach God's concern. We help our children to build a relationship with God. And so we teach our children faith. And so parents, we have to defend our families. It's time for us to be the godly parents we've been called to be.

To accept that responsibility to live God's way and be sure that we are guiding our families and that we have parent-centered families. Because God is a parent-centered God that we will worship and serve Him for all eternity. And so don't wait. Don't wait. Difficult times are ahead and it's going to become more difficult and more challenging. And there will be trials and temptations that will come our way, but we've been given direction.

And we can use this time that God has given us as a springboard to even more thoroughly put first things first and make God number one in our life. And we can take this tremendous responsibility and opportunity that God's given us to choose to live the best for our families using the time God's given us wisely. And we can make the decision. We can make the choice to have our home be a spiritual home. And I believe as we instill these principles into our lives, that we most certainly will defend our families.