Jeff Durbin | Dreamers Vs Workers

Proverbs 14:23 and the Call to Practical Wisdom

Proverbs chapter 14, Proverbs 14 in verse 23. We have to go a little faster today because we have a special time of fellowship afterwards together, but I would love, absolutely love to just talk through a series of lessons on this particular principle.

And it's amazing because as you get there, as I said a moment ago, this is such a simple, easy to understand principle. But if we're honest, there are a few things that keep us from actually pursuing this as a core principle of our lives in terms of building wealth or profit in any area of life, not just money, relationship, business, skills, whatever the case may be.

This is truly an important proverb. So wisdom from above, amen, this is from God. God is telling us, here's how to have skill in living. This is how you live. It's not just filling your head with knowledge.

The whole purpose of this series is so we stop being knowledgeable fools, people who know a lot of things about God. We can articulate the truths of the gospel, but we don't know how to live. And this one in particular, I love.

Proverbs 14, 23, hear now the word of the living and the true God. In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Thus far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray.

Lord, bless today. Lord, bless the proclamation of your word, your truth to your people. I pray that you would allow this word from you, this wisdom from you to transform us as a people in every area of our lives, God.

This is such a beautiful truth and such an inspiring truth, such an encouraging truth, but Lord, we all need work here. So I just pray that you'd bless us, God. Help us to understand this truth and actually bury it deep within us and get that profit that you promise.

In Jesus' name, amen. Again, in all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Simple, easy, right? Doesn't take long to digest the meaning of this principle, but it does take a lot for it to kick us in the teeth or in the behind so I actually get moving and grow in whatever area we need profit, in whatever area we're poor in.

It could deal with personal relationships, it could deal with business, dreams and hopes and goals, skills, our marriages, building wealth for our children, for our grandchildren, whatever the case may be, this particular principle is easy to digest.

Got it, understand. If you want profit, if you wanna gain, you have to work for it. If it's all talk, then it leads to poverty. You could spin this a number of different ways. I mean, there are highly successful, unbelieving secularists, real estate moguls, day traders, stock traders, people who are wealthy, they build, they're successful.

They could spin it a lot of different way. They could say, stop talking trash and get to work. You talk a lot of trash, but there's no actual work, right? You talk a big game, but I don't see anything, that sort of thing, right?

That's essentially what this proverb is. It's amazing, as successful as these guys are, and at the New York Times bestseller books of like entrepreneurship or growth or success or whatever, they're just copying off of God.

God said it first.

He said it a long time ago first.

In all toil, there is profit,.

But mere talk tends only to poverty.

Is that you?

So here's what I want you to do right now. Okay, simpler, quicker message today because of our fellowship, but I want you to do something. If you have a pen and paper, get ready to write something down with me.

And if you don't, if you have a phone, maybe take some notes in your phone or whatever you have to do. Send yourself a message, whatever. Okay, so in thinking about this beyond the principle, I want it to hit us all square in the face.

I want this to be a benefit to us as a church where we actually transform because of the wisdom. That's the goal of this series, not just to do a series, get through it, but we become a wise people. We actually grow, we thrive.

There are some promises in Proverbs that actually make a lot of reformed people uncomfortable in terms of wealth and stuff and treasure. And it's like, we don't wanna go the way of like a Benny Hinn or a Kenneth Copeland.

And so we actually ignore the passages that promise like a lot in terms of like wealth and things like that. We can't do that, it's God's word. So let's let it impact us. So take out your phone or write this down.

I want you to write down, if you would, two or three goals or dreams or hopes that you have or have had for a very long time. Could have to do with a number of different things. Money, could have to do with a business, a dream you've always had.

I'd rather be doing this. This is my passion. This is my passion. As long as I can remember, my passion has been this. This is what I want for my life. This is what I wanna pursue. I don't wanna feel like I'm working for the rest of my life.

I wanna feel like I'm not working because this is my passion. This is what I love. This is what I've always wanted for myself. This is my dream. Write down a dream that you have, a concept you have, an idea that you have.

You've had it, you know this would bless the world. It would bless other people, it would bless ministry. Whatever the case may be, it could be a number of different things. You could think about it in terms of like within the church, the walls of the church, or outside, work that's still glorifying to God as glorifying to God.

Or maybe it's a hope or dream or goal that you have in terms of a relationship, maybe with your wife, your husband, your children, or maybe it's that desire to have a spouse. Maybe that's the dream, maybe that's the goal.

Write that down. Now, think deeply about it. Maybe it's something that's been gnawing at you for the longest time. Maybe you're getting a little later in years and you feel like you've always been missing something as a believer.

You're passionate about something. You've always wanted to do this thing. It's always been your hope. It's always been your dream and it eats you alive. Sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and you're thinking about it.

This is what I really ought to be doing. I feel like this is kind of my calling, my gifting, and this is what I should be doing. Write that down, write it down. Now, again, this is so obvious in all toil.

There is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. Dreamers versus workers. That's the key issue here, the dreamer versus the worker. The person who's constantly dreaming, what if, and I could, and I wish, and this is what I could do.

It's there, the structure's there in their mind. They have the whole thing planned out. They've had it planned out for a decade, but there's nothing in front of them, so they figure, well, it's not appearing, so maybe I'm not supposed to do it.

Well, I don't think that's actually the case. The plans are here within us. We hope, we dream, we desire. We've got the passion for this thing. We feel like God's calling us to this, and so oftentimes, we're so trusting in the sovereignty of God that it just kind of hangs there between our ears, or it's just within us.

It's in our spirit, and we're thinking, well, God hasn't just dropped this out of the sky yet, and so I guess maybe that's not God's will for my life. That's not how the Bible works with God's sovereignty.

God actually is sovereignly in control over and decrees the ends as well as the what? The means. That in-between part is us. That's us.

It's our responsibility.

We're walking in time and in space. God, of course, is eternal and timeless.

He's got a decree.

We don't know what it is in every case. We know what he's told us his decree is. We know what the end of history is, by the way, or what God has done in Christ, but there are certain things in terms of the decree of God we don't know, we can't get access to, and so we walk by faith, and so we trust God, but we have to look inside and say,.

Well, like, what is it?

How come this thing I feel like I'm called to, I want to do, this business I wanna build, this dream I have, how come it hasn't come into fruition? And I think if we're honest,.

It's the first part of this principle.

That's the truth. It's the first part of the principle. In all toil, there is profit. You wanna get the wealth, you wanna get the gain, you wanna actually have the thing in front of you, hold on to it, well, you have to work for it.

You have to toil, you have to labor.

That's how you actually get it. If you're just a big talker, if you're just a dreamer, then it's just poverty. You find yourself empty-handed, and that's the principle. Simple enough, we're done today, let's pray.

No, that's, right?

It seems easy enough.

We can digest it, but what's the problem? First, before we get to in terms of like, well, what does the Proverbs say is the problem? How come it doesn't come into fruition? What does Scripture say? I wanna actually lay down at least two principles, two things to talk about, two things to think about.

How come we should be thinking about this in a different way? I'll start with a sort of banner over this. One of the things that we have to overcome is, well, there's a lot of things we have to overcome, but in terms of thinking about out there, building something, doing a business, whatever the case may be, we have this very strange view within the Western church today.

You've got like a secular-sacred divide. So you've got the sacred over here, right now in church, we're doing the sacred. This is the sacred, hallelujah, amen. This is the holy stuff. This is the God-pleasing stuff.

This is the worship stuff. This is the stuff that has to do with Jesus specifically. It's the sacred versus the secular. And right now, people walk in, they go, well, now we're doing our duty. Sunday, it's the Lord's day.

We're gonna do the sacred today, and I'm gonna go to bed tonight, and then tomorrow morning, and I'm gonna dabble in some of that secular stuff and sort of just go through the mundane secular stuff that really is not as meaningful to God and the world as this.

That sacred-secular divide is antithetical to what the Bible says about work, about your calling, your vocation. We need to see the world and what we do in it as our calling, our gifts, our calling, our work, our labor, our businesses.

We need to see it the way the Bible talks about it. It is whatever you do in word or in deed, do all what? To the glory of God. That means that you need to be a basketball star and play basketball better than anybody for the glory of God.

That is worship. Do you see it that way? Do you see that kind of work as worship?

You ought to.

The Bible sees it as that. Do you see, when you're going to work tomorrow at your, quote, secular job, do you see it as worship? Maybe that's why it's so awful. Maybe that's why you feel, at the end of the day, just so depleted and not satisfied is you're not seeing your work as something that is worship.

Work is worship. What I do with my hands, what I do with my life and my calling is worship, and it is as valuable as everything you're doing right now in the, quote, unquote, sacred. All of life is worship.

Do you agree with that?

Yes?

Now we can understand. There's a banner over it all. All of life is worship. Every detail, every bit of labor, every calling, every vocation, it is worship or it is not. So we need to get away from the sacred versus secular divide that is not a biblical perspective.

All of life is worship, and get this, all of life is sacred, every bit of it. And so all of life is worship, so we need to think in terms of, okay, if I'm making plans, if I'm plotting a future, if I'm dreaming a dream, if I'm setting a goal, I need to have something underneath me.

And the first thing I think we need to think about as believers, as we're looking forward and we're dreaming and we're saying, all right, Lord, I put this before you, I'm gonna toil for it so there's profit, we need to think about the character of God and what is God like.

What is God like? So have this underneath you when you think about this verse. What is God like? The Bible opens telling us what our God is like. And he creates us in his image to mirror him into the world, to let the world see what God is like, the perfect image of God.

He makes his creatures like him and says, now you shine that forth into the world. So you imitate me, you be like me. So in the beginning of the story in Genesis, we see God as somebody who works, he labors.

And we know the formula, right? The formula is six days of work and a seventh day for what? So that's what he builds at the beginning of creation. He shows us what he's like and what God is like is a worker.

God is not lazy, God is busy.

And so God works.

And so he creates you as his image bearer. And that's why laziness, being a sluggard is such a terrible sin.

Why?

Because you're sitting around doing nothing. That's not what God is like. God is busy, God works. And so we lay that underneath us to think about, okay, in toil, it's worship, there's gonna be a profit.

Now, how do I turn this into something as an understanding of obedience? Well, the obedience part is I wanna be like God. What is God not? God is not lazy.

God works.

But beyond that, in the beginning of the creation story, in terms of God is creating something amazing, he's laboring, he's working, what else is there?

What do you see?

A couple of things at least. You see that when God is, in the beginning of the story, working, he is creative. That part's obvious, right? He's creative because he's creating. In the beginning, God spoke and everything leaps into existence.

God is creative. He's making things. He's not being lazy. But he's also innovative, right? So he's creative, but he's innovative. He's making all new things and creative things and amazing things. But God is also good at what he's doing.

So when he finishes creating, what does he say? He says, it is what? Good. So God, we know, works. God is creative. God is innovative. And God is good at what God does. And so God says, you're my image bearer.

So here's your vocation. Be like me. Be like me in your life, in your vocation, in your calling, in your pursuits.

You work. You be creative.

You be innovative. You be good at what you do. Christians ought to be good at what they do, but that gets back to toil. So there's profit. So we actually are good at what we do. Now, I wanna just put this also underneath you as you think about the toil and the profit and the mere talk and the poverty.

We were there a year and a half, two years ago, as you finished Matthew up. I just wanna make sure you have a place in your heart and your life where you know where to go. And I believe this needs to be within us because it's something that has convicted me and challenged me many times over the years.

It's what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 24.

Go there.

Or 25, Matthew 25. Very convicting word from the Lord Jesus here. Matthew 25, starting in verse 14. This is the famous parable of the talents. Parable of the talents. Now, I don't have time to go through the whole sermon.

Again, I'm not gonna do that. I'm resisting all the temptation to do so. I just wanna mostly read this to us so we understand the consequence, right? We know the character of God. We know what he calls us to.

We know what the principle is. Toil, profit, trash talk, poverty. All talk, poverty. All dreams, poverty. We know what God is like, but we also have to understand there is a consequence to be handed a bag of gold by God and doing nothing about it.

All right, so there's, ready?

In this, the principle, toil, profit, all talk, poverty. There's also a moral consequence. When we think about all the things that God has given to you as a gift, all the passions and all the dreams that you have, the hopes that you have, the desires you have.

I'm gonna serve God in this way. I'm gonna build this thing for the glory of God and my family and set up a thing for generations. Whatever it may be, there's a bag of gold. Every glorious thing that's been erected in the world, buildings, businesses, ministries, started as an idea.

Started as just a seed in somebody's mind. There was that little token, that little piece of gold. There it was, and it just got invested and circulated and grown. Here it is, Proverbs, sorry, Matthew 25, 14.

For it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.

He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more, but he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.

Now after a long time, the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, master, you delivered to me five talents here.

I have made five talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, master, you delivered to me two talents.

Here I have made two talents more. His master said to him, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.

So I was afraid. Mark that down. Mark that down. So I was afraid. So I was afraid. And I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what's yours. But his master answered him, you wicked and slothful servant.

What's that mean, slothful?

What's that mean?

Lazy.

You wicked.

There's a moral component to this. There's an obligation before God. I gave you something. I expected a return off of what I gave you. And the response to the guy who buries it, right? Here's the gift.

Here's the bag of gold. Here's the talent I gave you. Here's the gold. The guy says, I'm afraid. So I'm driven by fear here. And so what I'll do is nothing. Because I'm afraid. And so I'm not gonna do anything.

And so he buries it and says, well, at least you've got back the thing that you presented to me. And the answer is, you wicked, you evil and lazy servants. He says, you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed.

Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers. And at my coming, I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the 10 talents.

For to everyone who has will more be given and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away and cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Well, there you go.

It's not all ponies and rainbows here in Matthew 25, right? I mean, this is a moral component. God says this, here I am the master, you're the servants, and I'm gonna give gold. I'm gonna give bags of gold.

I'm gonna give a pot of gold to each person according to what their ability is. And if you bring a return on what my investment is in you, if you bring a return, I will, because you're faithful over a little, give you even more.

I'm gonna give you even more to govern, to manage, to do. I'll give you more because you can be trusted. If you are given this thing by God, you return it to God as an investment that doubles in size.

And the wicked and lazy servant is so afraid and so lazy, they bury it and there's a moral failure there. God's saying, I will confront that. I'm gonna confront the one that I've given this gold to and there's no return.

Well, Lord, you don't understand.

I was afraid.

I was so afraid. It was more comfortable staying where I was. It was comfortable staying in that job that I hated. It was comfortable staying in that vocation that I hated. It was safe there and just much easier.

You see, that's not an answer that God's gonna accept, obviously. There's a moral component here. We're to be like God and God says, if I give you gold, I expect a return and I wanna bless you. So there's the blessing initially, but then there's more blessing to come if you're faithful over the little.

So as you think about toil and profit and just mere talk that leads to poverty, just think about the character of God. Think about all of life is worship and think about the parable of the talents God requires of us to get a return on his investments in us.

And so again, think about it. What are your hopes? What are your dreams? What do you plan for? What have you been dreaming of for five years or 10 years or 20 years or 30 years? Just been there and it wakes you up at night thinking about it.

I wish that I would actually finally just do this. This is what I feel God's made me for. This is what I'm passionate about. If I could do this thing, I would just feel like I'm worshiping God every moment of every day.

What is it? Now, I think there's a couple of things because the principle is easy enough to understand, right? There's toil, profit. If you labor, there's profit. You're gonna gain something. And if it's all mere talk, if it's just trash talk, it's just ending in poverty.

I think there's a couple of things you see in the book of Proverbs that indicate exactly the problem. You saw it in Jesus in the parable. He calls him lazy and wicked and the guy was clearly driven by fear.

Well, laziness, I think is probably the primary culprit behind us not toiling with profit. So just a couple of things. You've already seen some of these before. Go to Proverbs 13, four. Proverbs 13, four.

Text says, the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied. Don't you love the book of Proverbs? It's saying the same thing with a different spin and it hits you a different way.

It adds more weight and more layers to the same principle. But actually here, it gives you a little bit of a taste of what's actually going on inside of the lazy person. It says, the soul of the lazy, the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing.

Is that my problem? Is that your problem? Is that we're all about dreaming and thinking and wishing and hoping? And the problem is, is we never actually step forward to labor and plod and plant and start to work.

We dream, we crave it, it's within us, but we're so lazy, we do nothing to actually see it come to fruition. There's the proverb there. So what's one of the primary things that gets in the way of us profiting or gaining?

Well, one of the most important things is to overcome laziness in our lives. Next, Proverbs 6. Proverbs 6, six through 11. This is one of my favorite sermons I got to preach, actually, I don't know why, just I loved it.

Verse six of chapter six. Go to the aunt, oh sluggard, consider her ways and be wise. Without having any chief officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in the summer and gathers her food and harvest. How long will you lie there, oh sluggard?

When will you rise 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, obvious enough. Look, big human being, if you don't understand what I'm saying, stop being lazy and pay attention to that little aunt.

Look at what they gain, look at how they work. They are planning, plotting, they are working and God's dissing the person that's like, I just wanna rest a little bit. Can we just stop and rest for a bit?

Can, you know, I've worked really hard, I wanna just rest a little bit and fold the hands and just take a breath and they're doing that a lot. Like every day is, can we just take a rest? Can we just take a break?

And God is indicting that as a problem. That's laziness, being a sluggard only ends in poverty. Proverbs 24, you have to forgive me everyone for going so fast today. I wanna do my best to do a shorter sermon.

Proverbs 24, starting in verse 30. I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns. The ground was covered with nettles and its stone wall was broken down.

Then I saw and considered it, I looked and received instruction, 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.

Again, Proverbs 21, 25, finally. What causes us to stop working for our dreams, our hopes, our goals? How come we don't get the profit that we hope for? The desire of the sluggard kills him for his hands refuse to labor.

There it is, seeing the theme? Like the scriptures are identifying it. Here's the principle, here's the promise. Principle and the promise, toil, profit, mere talk, poverty. And now we see the indications from God and here's what is the problem behind no profit.

This is why there is no gain in our lives. Simple enough, simple enough. Scripture's clear, that's the problem. Our laziness will stop us from the gain. And so next I believe is fear. You saw it in the worthless servant, in the one who was lazy and wicked.

There was that component of fear in Proverbs 26. Proverbs 26, verse 13. I love this one. The sluggard says, there's a lion in the road. There's a lion in the streets. There's a lion in the road, there's a lion in the streets.

What does that mean? The lazy person is driven by fear of what may happen, what could be the consequences. And in this case, it's kind of cartoonish. By the way, the people that say things like, you should never smile or joke as a Christian, or I even saw someone recently that said like, if somebody is telling a joke in a sermon, now we have to be careful how we do that, I understand.

But if someone's telling a joke in a sermon, they're sinning against God. It's like, we're gonna have a real problem with that because as you're reading the Bible, it's telling jokes. Right, God has a sense of humor.

And this is the part that's supposed to laugh. It's kind of cartoonish. You've got the lazy person, they're doing nothing. And their excuse is, there's a lion in the road. Sorry, I can't do any work today because there's danger out there.

That's the problem. And there's more. It says, as a door turns on its hinges, so does a sluggard on his bed. Just constantly back and forth. That's your pattern of life. You don't do anything. You don't accomplish anything.

You're just rolling over back and forth. And when someone says, why don't you get up and do something? The answer is, I just wanna rest a little bit longer. I wanna take a little bit more of a break and think things through.

I wanna do a little more dreaming, right? And the problem is, there's a lot of danger out there. If I do what I feel like I'm called to do, there's a lot of risk involved, a lot of consequences. I may face some difficulties.

I might have two years of a lot of pain trying to build this business that I hope for and I dream for. And so that's just a lot of danger. It's kind of like a lion in the street. Then it goes on. After flipping over and over and over like a door on the hinges, it says in verse 15, the slugger buries his hand in the dish.

It wears him out to bring it to his mouth. Sorry, I just had to finish that. We're talking about the fear component here, but it's a person, I just love the, it is cartoonish. It's a person that goes, like they're really hungry.

They need to eat. Like they're starving. They haven't eaten for days maybe, right? And they're just like, ah, ah,.

I can't get my hand in my mouth.

Like there's, it just buries the hand in the dish. It's supposed to make the person look stupid, right? Just pick up your hand, you lazy bum, and put the hand to the mouth. They just can't get all the way.

It's like, oh, I worked too hard. I can't, I've already expended enough energy. That's as far as I'm going, right? Like that's the extent of the slugger's work is, his work ethic is like, I'll at least get halfway and like act like I accomplished something.

I can't get it to my mouth. Well, that's more in the laziness portion, but we can at least see from scripture that there is something that drives the slugger and it is fear. We saw in the parable, he was driven by fear and God calls him a lazy and worthless servant.

So fear is probably a component of why am I stopping? Why don't I pursue this? Now watch, they can actually go beyond the lion in the street. That's supposed to be cartoonish for a reason. It's supposed to wake you up, it's supposed to startle you.

But sometimes it may not be a lion in the streets, not that cartoonish, it's not that kind of danger. What can stop us from actually laboring for a profit, plotting and working for the profit and not just being trash talkers and hopeful dreamers.

So maybe one day, hopefully someday, back to the drawing board. What can stop us is the fear of danger. Like, well, my job now is super comfortable. Like I make a promised amount of money. I'm not doing what I feel like I'm called to do.

I'm super good at something else. I can glorify God in a big way if I could just do this thing. But you know, this job is safe. The danger out on the other side of this is if I actually pursue what I think God is calling me to do, if I actually use the gift that God has given to me and I don't just squander it and bury it in the ground, but actually allow it to produce a major return for God, like if I actually do that, there's a danger of now I'm not safe.