When I was a little boy, my favorite stories and shows were of Winnie the Pooh. I loved it. I had a stuffed animal of Winnie the Pooh. I think I still have it somewhere in a box in my basement of items that my parents gave me when they cleaned out their old house.
My mom loves to remind me that when I was a little boy I would blame everything on my Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal. When I turned on the fan in my room and my mom asked me who turned the fan on, I said that Pooh did it. I don’t remember why I enjoyed Winnie the Pooh so much. But I remember his friends like Rabbit and Eeyore and Piglet. And I remember Pooh’s favorite thing: his favorite thing to do was nothing.
This was cute in a kids’ show about animals. But we don’t live in the Hundred Acre Wood, and God hasn’t called us to just do nothing. We have real responsibilities where people depend on us and need us to come through. As much as doing nothing sounds nice, and as tempted as we are to do nothing by scrolling on our phones or just ducking out of taking responsibility, that is not what God made us for. He made us to work.
Work is of particular interest to many Christians today. There are faith-and-work institutions that seek to train Christians to operate for the good of the city. There are ministries that help you understand God’s will for your life and how that works out in your vocation.
Even in our own Protestant tradition, there is a lot of literature on the Protestant work ethic. What do we mean by this? There is a lot of material that has been published showing that Protestants have a unique approach to work and vocation, especially as compared to Catholics. Martin Luther himself talked about how we should pursue excellence in everything we do as Christians. When he spoke of shoemakers, he said that they should make their shoes to the glory of God.
But the challenge in our day is that a lot of work and many vocations feel disconnected. Meaning that they don’t really satisfy. We live in a day where many of us work on screens, pecking away on keyboards, often without the material reward of an actual physical product like you might get from farming, gardening, construction. Many will end their work day only to feel a great sense of lack, that they accomplished anything at all. The best they can get to show for their work is numbers on a screen that show they have currency in some bank. But how should we think of work?
Self-Governance Produces Fruit
Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.
— Proverbs 6:6–11
Self-governance produces fruit. Lack of discipline produces poverty. What do we mean by self-governance? It is the ability to regulate and govern oneself. To manage one’s internal world and motivation. This is very challenging in a technological age because everything is designed to manipulate dopamine and basically suck the life out of you. God designed dopamine. It can be corrupted by the fall so that we desire sin and give in to laziness.
Not only this, but self-governance is one of the most crucial elements that can predict success in life. Social scientists are just now noticing this, but God knows it, and it’s been in his Word because he designed mankind. Your ability to make prudent decisions with self-control will determine if you are able to work and produce fruit. If you lack this kind of internal regulation, it will not go well for you.
What we’re talking about here is being the type of person, the wise person, that can put off rewards and has internal self-motivation. Now this is challenging, because with our world saturated with comfort and convenience, many have been lulled to sleep. Some people lack an internal self-motivation. Those people typically don’t go far.
Ancient Christians didn’t just call this person slothful or lazy. They called it the vice of acedia. This is the slothful person. This is a listless person who is sluggish. They lack motivation and avoid their duties. There seems to be no motivation in them to do things. They just want to lay around. They want to do nothing.
How many have had those days or weeks where you feel that way? I’m sure many of us. One of the devil’s means of destroying Christian agency, power, and discipline is by utilizing systems and reward mechanisms that actually encourage acedia. Instead of work being rewarding, we get rewarded through escape and call it rest. It’s why you don’t feel rested after binge watching your latest show.
It’s important here to distinguish between acedia and depression. Many people throw around the word or concept of depression when what they are really confessing is that they are dealing with acedia and if so, that is fixable. Because if we’re dealing with the temptation to just put things off and lay around and not do anything and avoid our duties, there is a remedy to that. Just do something. This is not to say there aren’t real circumstances of depression, but that acedia is almost always called depression today.
Here is an example of how to fight acedia. When you get the laundry out of the dryer, like I did this week, you put it somewhere. You got it in the washer, a convenience in and of itself. And you moved it to the dryer. But something happens when the dryer buzzer goes off. We don’t want to fold our clothes and put them away. And now it lives at the foot of your bed. You see it and you do nothing about it.
What’s the best way to handle it? Just fold the laundry. The way out of acedia is to knock out tasks. You need to stack up small wins and get yourself out of acedia and into productivity. I think many of you would be helped by just saying “I’m struggling with acedia” rather than “depression,” because it is more accurate.
Friends, in our world you have to fight acedia every day, because media and technology seem designed to get you to be lazy.
I think many people will say they are overwhelmed, like they have so much going on and don’t know what to do. They feel swamped and beat down. I’m sympathetic to that. But did you know that one of the best cures to get out of that feeling is just to tackle something? God designed you to be able to sense the reward of getting things done and taking dominion. Take one small task, and then do another small task, and just keep going. You sense this when you finally tackle that ever growing list of projects around the house, hang up that picture, change that lightbulb, repair that broken door.
Even the insects know the seasons and when and how to work with diligence. They don’t have someone that forces them to work. They just get up and work. This gets to a creational reality. God designed work in the garden. Work is not a curse. The curse affects our work. Now we have thorns and thistles. But work itself is a good thing that God designed your body for.
The questions is: how can I become a person of self-governance? You can build small habits. You can start with small tasks. You can practice and grow. But ultimately you must turn to Christ. Because you may practice all that Jordan Peterson or your favorite self-help author tells you, but at the end of the day you will not be able to be productive enough to cleanse you of your sins. And at the end of the day you could learn the seven habits of highly effective people and still be cut off from Christ.
This deals with your soul and how you manage your spiritual life. Because if you will not cultivate spiritual habits and holiness, Jesus will seem far off to you.
If you will not sow now because it is cold, you are like to beg in harvest, and have nothing, at the end of the world: and then you will say, “Lord, Lord, open unto us,” and he will say, verily, verily, I know you not, depart from me ye workers of iniquity.
— Benjamin Keach, Tropologia
There are many who are slothful in the things of the Lord. It should not be so. Instead we should be filled with the Spirit so that we have the fruit of self-control and self-mastery.
Kill acedia and become like the ant. Do your job.
Diligence Produces
A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame.
— Proverbs 10:4–5
Diligence will produce. It is not just about the person who rejects acedia and embraces diligence. It is about what that person will get. They will not just harvest, but their diligence will make them rich.
This is helpful, because most people have an intrinsic desire to be rich. I think most people would like it if someone were to bless them with wealth. Yes, there are dangers, and yes it can lead to a multiplication of sin, and yes we must be careful not to hoard and be greedy or worship money instead of God. All that is true. But we all want to make more money. And Proverbs is simply observing that diligence is more likely than not to produce riches. So if you are a person that would like to get more money, the path is diligence.
What does the proverb mean by a slack hand? This is one who is not diligent. That is the contrast. The slack hand is one that is sloppy and lazy. It is one that doesn’t think through cause and effect. It works without direction and purpose. This will produce poverty.
The man of wisdom is one who knows the season to reap. He knows that in the summer and harvest season, you gather in the crops. My father-in-law was a farmer, and he knew this. During harvest, he would work long days. In fact, the date of Kim and I’s wedding was determined by harvest season. But during winter there was less work to do. Unfortunately, there are those who sleep in the harvest, and these bring shame because they lack wisdom. They are fools.
This is why Jesus teaches about the unfaithful servant who buried his talent and was not diligent, and why all throughout the Bible the slothful should not eat or be rewarded for slothfulness. This speaks to economic issues as well regarding socialistic systems which run contrary to God’s design, whether it is welfare schemes or government handouts. There should not be, even in the church, handouts for people who refuse to work and if in the church, how much more in society. But the questions for us is: Am I diligent, or do I have a slack hand?
What does that look like in your vocation? It looks like you being diligent with your responsibilities, even if those tasks or responsibilities don’t inspire or excite you. So much of our temptation to acedia is rooted in bitterness about what we need to do.
“I don’t want to send that email.” “I don’t want to reach out to that customer.” “I don’t like creating spreadsheets.” “I just want to do this instead.” Yeah, no kidding. Who wouldn’t like to do a job or vocation where they just got to do whatever they wanted all the time? That’s not real life for 99% of people. There will always be things that are not that fulfilling about work. But we should still do them with diligence. That doesn’t mean perfection. Perfection is often the enemy. But just completing the job makes a world of difference in your ability to generate wealth.
This is not only true in work, where you know this to be true. It is also true spiritually. Jesus taught us this: that the field is white for the harvest. We on this side of the ascension of Jesus Christ are in a season of harvest. We must be diligent in stewarding the gospel. That means we should be faithful wherever we are, to be people who are able and willing to speak about the good news that Jesus Christ lives. Just be diligent. Many Christians will get frustrated because their evangelism seems to not produce the harvest they want. But all we are called to do is remain faithful and preach the gospel.
So not only should we do our job and be diligent, we should remember that diligence is more likely than slothfulness to produce riches.
Skill Gains Influence
Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.
— Proverbs 22:29
Diligence and skill gain influence.
People want influence. This is good. You as a man should want to influence your family, your wife, your children, and those around you. Women, you should want to influence those women around you in the things of God. Husbands and wives should influence one another. This is a good thing. That influence can come in a variety of avenues. Whether that be through inspiration or encouragement or even correction, you should have in mind expansion of territory and dominion. This doesn’t mean you should adopt the mind of the world and make your influence the be-all and end-all of your life. There are too many influencers out there peddling fake stuff. We’re not aiming for that. We want to bring life and peace to the world. And we want to use all that God has given us to influence the world for Christ’s kingdom. Influence takes time that is built on skill.
What we see in this proverb is that if you want to gain influence and stand before kings, you must hone your craft. Whatever your vocation, you should pay careful attention to your work and how to excel at it. You should strive to be a master at your craft, whatever that is. Are you stocking grocery shelves? Then do that with excellence. Are you engineering water treatment facilities? Do it with excellence. Are you a software engineer, a business owner, a plumber, a project manager, a lawyer? Do those with excellence. Are you a homemaker? Do it with excellence, expand your family’s footprint and capacity. Are you a student? Do it with excellence, throw yourself into learning. The result of skillful and excellent work is influence.
And of course we should not neglect the reality that we should hone our spiritual craft. We should be Christians who strive for excellence in pursuing heavenly rewards. We should become skillful in prayer and obedience before the Lord. Because we stand before the King of Kings. He is our great high priest. And one day we will stand before Him face to face.
The bottom line from these three Proverbs:
Self-governance produces fruit.
Diligence leads to production.
Skill gains influence.
All of this points to eternal matters: we aim for a heavenly reward which have been promised to us in Christ Jesus. We should not focus on material concerns but heavenly concerns. We should concern ourselves with being diligent in the things of the Lord and produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Many of us are eager to focus on the material concerns we have, like a vocation that is satisfying and making money, at the expense of heavenly matters. These are not opposed, but we should not neglect the things of the Lord.
How to Work Hard
If you have been lazy, undisciplined, and unskilled, you must come to Christ and learn wisdom.
I remember being a young man who was rather uninterested in work. I grew up pretty well off, so I didn’t see the need, honestly. But when I turned 16 and got my first job digging ditches for my dad, it clicked. Okay, this is what it looks like to be diligent, and why it matters, and how you can make money. There is a good and natural reward to the wise person in their work. Young men can struggle with this in our day, and so they must be taught and given opportunities to work hard.
I do not think the danger in our day is that we work too hard, but that we work on the wrong things. In fact, acedia may be the bigger danger today, more than being a workaholic. We are not so much tempted towards leisure, which can be good, but laziness. Many evangelicals will lament the potential idolatry of work, that you’re a workaholic. The spiritual person is supposed to be the person that doesn’t care about his work. I don’t think this is the biggest temptation. I think it is the temptation to label foolishness as leisure, and acedia as depression.
It is fine to take vacations and take breaks from work. There are seasons of hard harvest work and seasons where the field doesn’t need much work. You should aspire to gain wealth and be able to have leisure in your life. But life is more than leisure. There is the joy of hard work that God made you for.
All of this is not contrary to rest, even taking a nap. Jesus took naps. And God has designed the world such that the Sabbath, a weekly day of rest, is meant to be not just a prohibition on working but a reset in your vocation that leads to better outcomes for you. The Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, is not just a punishment. It’s an invitation to work hard six days a week. Yes, of course we should not overwork, and yes there can be danger there, but start with the Sabbath, orient your life around that rhythm, and see what happens.
In all of this, we are not just aiming for money and influence. We are aiming for glory. We are fixed on our heavenly destination, such that our success or failures, our poverty and riches, do not determine our salvation. If you are in Christ, your salvation has been fixed by Him. And now, out of that salvation, we get to do all we do for the glory of God so that our skillful work and excellence is not just to gain esteem in the eyes of men but to bring glory to God.
This sermon was preached at The Well Church in Boulder, CO on May 24, 2026. To listen to this sermon go here. To watch this sermon go here.