Image: New members sign membership covenant at CRBC (1.17.16)
Note:
Devotion taken from last Sunday morning’s sermon on Hebrews 6:11-15.
“That ye be not slothful….” (Hebrews 6:12)
True
Christians are not to be the equivalent of spiritual slackers or spiritual lazy
bones. The ethicists of the middle ages
identified sloth or laziness as one of the seven deadly sins. Warnings against slothfulness are especially
abundant in the Proverbs (cf. Proverbs 12:24; 15:19; 19:24; 21:25; 22:13;
26:14).
These Proverbs
are about the practical, earthly dangers of laziness. It is, in part, attention to passages like
these by Bible-believing Christians that resulted in what is called the
Protestant work ethic. It is a vice to
be slothful, but it is a virtue to be diligent, alert, active, and
hard-working.
Here in
Hebrews 6:12 that sort of practical advice is turned to spiritual matters: “that ye be not slothful.” Some of the problems with the Hebrews to whom
this letter was addressed, professed believers who were shrinking back from
Christ, might well have been caused by fear brought about by persecution, by
discouragement, and by doubt. Some of it,
however, might have been brought about by their own sheer laziness and lack of
diligence.
The
spiritually lazy person might well understand in theory the importance of
corporate worship, of daily Bible reading, of constant prayer, of spiritual
meditation, of secret fasting, of tangible expressions of love for the brethren
and love of neighbor. He might even
imagine in his mind that he has been diligent about such things, when he has
not. I have sometimes exhorted persons
who have forsaken the assemblies of God’s people without providential cause who
have protested, “But I am there every Sunday!”
The spiritually slothful often lack critical self-awareness.
Consider
this image in the Proverbs:
Proverbs 24:30 I went by the
field of the slothful, and by
the vineyard of the man void of understanding; 31 And, lo, it was all grown
over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the
stone wall thereof was broken down. 32 Then I saw, and considered it well:
I looked upon it, and received instruction. 33 Yet a little
sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: 34 So shall
thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.
What
does your spiritual house look like? Is
it cultivated, well maintained, handsome, sound, and circumspect? Or, is it broken down, overgrown, dilapidated,
suffering from lack of attention?
The
counterpart to spiritual laziness is what we sometimes call the spiritual
disciplines. These are the ordinary
practices of Christian discipleship, or what our catechism calls the outward
and ordinary means of grace, including things like the intake of God’s Word,
the sacraments (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), prayer and meditation, to which
it adds, “by all of which the believers are further edified in their most holy
faith.”
These
are the spiritual workouts which keep us lean and fit for running the race of
the Christian life. Consider the
exhortations of the apostle Paul and his description of the Christian life as
like running a race (cf. Phil 3:13-14; 1 Cor 9:24-27).
The
Christian, then, is like an elite athlete who must always be training and
submitting himself to the personal and corporate disciplines so that he might, by God’s
grace, cultivate the stamina and the endurance needed to run and to finish the
race that is set before him.
Friends,
let us avoid spiritual slothfulness and be diligent to the end.
Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle
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