If you knew for a fact that Jesus was coming back a week from today, what would you do? Let me give you an example of what some people did back in October of 1843. In October of 1843 there was a group of people called the Millerites who were absolutely convinced that Jesus was coming back on October 22, 1843. When the month of October rolled around, here is what these Millerites did. Although they had planted crops, they did not harvest their crops, because they knew they would not need them. Jesus was coming back. In October, many of them quit their jobs. They quit their jobs, because they knew they would not need their jobs, anymore. Jesus was coming back, very soon. Many of them went into their homes and started giving away their precious possessions, because they knew they would not need them anymore. Jesus was coming back soon.

And then, on October 22, 1843, well...it was a great disappointment to them.

I want to get into their mindset, a little bit. Why did they give away their jobs? Why did they stop working? Why did they stop worrying about their crops? Why did they start giving away all of their possessions? Here is why.

They did not care about them,

anymore.

They had an absence of caring for those things. They thought, "Jesus is coming. We are thrilled. We are excited about that! So, why care about my job anymore? Why care about my possessions?"

You know, that is the exact same thing that St. Paul apparently was dealing with, with the Thessalonians. The Thessalonians were aware that Jesus was coming back. Some of them thought that His return was immanent, "He is coming back, very, very, very soon." And so, apparently some of the Thessalonians, like the Millerites in 1843, decided, "I am not going to work anymore. Why do I need to work? Jesus is coming back. I don't need the money. I am not worried about the future."

I want to talk about that mindset, a little bit. Did you know that in the middle ages someone, (I don't know who it was), came up with a list of what has been known now for centuries as The 7 Deadly Sins. They are called the 7 Deadly Sins, because they can lead to so many other different sins. I am curious if you know what the list of the 7 Deadly Sins are. Here is what the list is.

1. The sin of PRIDE.
2. The sin of ENVY.
3. The sin of ANGER
4. The sin of GREED.
5. The sin of LUST.
6. The sin of GLUTTONY.

Does anyone know what number seven is? It is an old word called the sin of Acadia. Acadia literally translated from Greek means, "absence of caring."

It is also known by several synonyms in scripture as: sloth, idleness, laziness, and being a sluggard. The Bible talks about those issues. And, here in today's scripture reading, Paul points out the sin of idleness, which comes from a lack of caring. "I don't care. Jesus is coming back. So, I don't care about my job, anymore. I am not going to work in my job, anymore." And people became idle. They became lazy.

If you look in the book of Proverbs, and throughout scripture, scripture explains in detail the problem with idleness, laziness, sluggardliness, or slothfulness. There are three major problems that it leads to. Number one, in the book of Proverbs, the Bible compares the sin of being slothful to this. It says,

"The sluggard

is a brother to the one who destroys."

In another place it says,

"When a man is lazy,

the rafters sag and the roof leaks."

So, what is the Bible telling us? The Bible tells us that first of all, God has given us everything that we have and we are to take good care of it. If I am lazy or idle, I become a poor steward; a poor manager of what God has given to me.

It is like I am destroying what God has given to me. If I don't take care of my job, I could end up losing my job. If I don't take care of my house, I could end up ruining my house, and destroying my house.

When we look at the sin of laziness, or not caring, it can cover all kinds of areas of our life. I may not care about my job and as a result, I can be lazy at my job. I may not care about my homework, and as a result I could be lazy and idle about doing my homework. I may not care about how my room looks and as a result, I can be idle, lazy, and slothful about picking up my room. I could, maybe, not care so much about my relationships with people, and as a result I become slothful, idle, and sluggardly in taking care of my relationships with my spouse, with my children, with my friends.

There are many things that we can become slothful about. And when we do, the Bible says that we are brother to one who destroys. We are not taking care of those things.

Secondly, the Bible tells us there is another problem with slothfulness, or idleness. Why are you here? Why are you here on this earth? You are here to serve.

When we become slothful and idle, we become takers. We become takers, not givers. Here is what the Bible says in the book of Proverbs. In the book of Proverbs it says,

"The sluggard does not plow his field in the summer

so he has no harvest in the fall."

The Bible says,

"The righteous son harvests the grain,

but the sluggardly son lays in bed and does not harvest."

Then the Bible goes on and says,

"The sluggard is always craving,

always wanting,

always needing something,

whereas the righteous man has enough to give

in abundance."

What happens if I am a farmer who is idle at my job, and I am idle at my work? Well then, I won't be able to store up food for myself. I won't be prepared, when the day comes to be ready. And then, I will always be wanting food. How am I going to get it? I am going to have to be a taker. I am going to have to get it from you. I am going to ask you. I am going to have to beg from you. I am going to be always wanting. I won't be in a position where I can be a giver. If I am a giver, I have stored up for myself, because I have done the work the Lord has called me to do, and I am now prepared.

When we don't enable ourselves to be givers and we cause ourselves to be takers, scripture points that out as sin. If I don't take care of my job and don't earn my money as a result, I will end up being a taker and not a giver. If I don't take care of my relationships, I am not being a giver to you and I may be a taker from you.

There is a third problem with idleness. Paul points it out in today's text, when he says,

"If anyone not work,

neither should he eat."

In other words, if you are not going to work, then don't be a taker.

But then he points out that idleness, sluggardliness, slothfulness leads to other sins. In the case of the Thessalonians, because they were idle about their work, because some of them apparently had given up their jobs, they needed something to fill their time. They were still busy. They didn't just sit around all day. What were they doing? Paul said about them,

"They are not busy;

they are busybodies."

They were filling their time, alright. But they were filling their time in sinful ways. They were filling their time by talking about each other, by gossiping, by slandering, by waiting to hear the latest ‘juicy news’ about somebody else. And so, their idleness led to living nonproductive lives. In fact, they were living lives where they were doing sinful and wrong things.

The same can be true in our lives. When we become idle, when we don't pour ourselves into the things that God has given us to take care of, we are going to fill our time. We are going to fill our time. And, there is a good chance that we are going to fill it with something that we should not be filling it with, and that is a sin.

I wonder, do we ever sit back and really think, "In my own life, am I lazy?"

MTV did a survey recently. They listed the Seven Deadly Sins and asked the respondents, "Which of those do you think you struggle with?" Only ten percent of the respondents thought they struggled with the sin of sloth, laziness, idleness, sluggardliness. Go home today, and in the privacy of your own home think about all of the areas of your life. Think about your job. Are you lazy, slothful at your job? Do you care about your job? What about your homework? Do you care about your homework? Or, are you idle, lazy about it? What about the upkeep of your house? Do you care, or are you idle, lazy, slothful about it? Or what about your car, or the other things that God has given you? What about your relationships? Go home and really think about your relationships. Do you care about your relationships enough that you are pouring your time and energy into taking care of them? Or, are you idle and lazy about taking care of your relationships?

Ultimately, think about this one.

You know, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 6, it says to us, about our spiritual life, "We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We don't want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who, through faith and patience, inherit what has been promised."

Go home and ask yourself, "Do I care about my spiritual life? Do I care whether I grow in my knowledge of scripture? Do I? Am I actively trying to grow daily, knowing more and more about scripture, or am I idle about it? Do I care whether I grow strong enough to fight against certain sins in my life, or am I without care, without concern about that? Am I lazy, am I idle, am I slothful about those things? Do I care whether I am spreading the Word of God to the people in my neighborhood? Do I care, or have you grown idle, slothful, lazy, sluggardly about those things? Do I care? Do I care about living a life of exemplary faith? Have I made that my goal, my mission to know more and more, to grow deeper and deeper, to live stronger and stronger? Or am I lazy, sluggardly? What about my prayer life? Do I care? Or, have I grown idle, lazy, and sluggardly?"

Go home and ask yourself those questions.

I know when I was thinking about this sermon, I thought about all kinds of areas in my life where I am lazy. And I know that is a sin.

So, what do we do, then? Well, thank the Lord; thank the Lord, that God, Himself, isn't lazy toward us. He is not idle toward us. He is not without concern or care toward us. Thank the Lord that God does not look at you and me, and say, "So what? I don't care. I don't care if you are destined to burn in the fire that is never quenched. I don't care. I don't have a concern. I don't care if you are destined to be in the place where the worm never dies." Thank God, God doesn't say, "I don't care about that."

What if God said, "I don't care. I don't care if you deserve to be punished for all eternity?"

Thank the Lord that God, in all of His diligence, cares about us so deeply that He diligently took on human flesh. He diligently, all of His life, lived for you, thinking about you, living in your place, being holy in your place, for you. He went to the cross for you, diligently suffering for you, diligently being punished for you, diligently dying for you, diligently washing away your sin.

Every day He declares that you are forgiven, for the sake of Christ.

Every day He cares for you and watches over you. Every day He sends His angels to guard over you. Every day He works out things for your good, even though you don't understand how He is doing it, or how He is working it. Every day He sees to it that Jesus rules over everything for the good of His Church. God has seen to it that you were brought to faith. God has seen to it that you have been kept in your faith. God has seen to it that you know Jesus. Thank the Lord, thank God, that God in His diligence forgives us all of our sins. And, He cares for us every day.

So, we go to God and we repent of our laziness, our idleness. We thank God. We trust in Jesus that our sins of idleness are forgiven, by grace, for Christ's sake. And then, we go forward, as Paul says, "Follow my example." Paul said to the Thessalonians, "While I was with you I worked hard." He worked hard teaching the Gospel. And although he could have expected them to give him food to eat, and a place to live, Paul said, "Even though I had the right to do that, I did not take bread from you without paying for it." He did that because he wanted to set them an example. He understood that the Thessalonians had an issue with idleness, with laziness. And so, he said,

"We worked night and day, laboring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you. We did this, not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to make ourselves a model for you to follow."

Paul worked hard. Paul probably had a second job. He preached during the daytime, and probably made tents at nighttime. He was diligent. He cared. He cared about those people. He cared so much that he probably even worked an extra job, just to set an example to them on how to live their lives.

And so, Paul in today's scripture reading says,

"We command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat. And as for you brothers, never tire of doing what is right."

Jesus is coming back. He is! And we really look forward to that day. But instead of saying, "Well then, I don't care. I don't care about my job. Jesus is coming back. I don't care about my relationships. Jesus is coming back. I am not going to take care of those things. Jesus is coming back."

Scripture says that because Jesus is coming back we should take care of those things. Take care of those things. Be diligent. So long as you are here on this earth, be diligent. Take care of the things that God has given to you, so that you can be a giver, so that you can give to those in need, so that you can give to the work of the Lord, so that you can give to someone who may be hungry, because you are diligent about what you do. Be diligent in your spiritual life, so that you can give to those in need, spiritually, so that you can pray for them, so that you can build them up in their faith. Be diligent in your spiritual life, so that you remain built up, until the day Jesus comes.

Amen.