Wisdom & Work Ethic – Proverbs 6:6-11

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. (Genesis 1:1; 2:2)

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. (Genesis 1:26; 2:15)

The wise worker works with

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. (Romans 12:1)

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, (Colossians 3:23)

The enemy in our time is not human capacity, or over activism, but the enemy is passivity – the idea that God has done everything and you are essentially left to be a consumer of the grace of God and that the only thing you have to do is find out how to do that and do it regularly. I think this is a terrible mistake and accounts for the withdrawal of active Christians from so many areas of life where they should be present. It also accounts for the lack of spiritual growth, for you can be sure that if you do not act in an advised fashion consistently and resolutely you will not grow spiritually…Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Earning is attitude. Effort is action. Without effort, we would be nowhere. You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire by the grace of God. (Dallas Willard)

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. (1 Corinthians 15:10)

The wise worker prepares

“Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty.” (Proverbs 21:5)

The wise worker takes

The wise worker makes moves

A sluggard says, “There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!” As a door turns on its hinges, so a sluggard turns on his bed. (Proverbs 26:13-14)

There is profit in all hard work, but endless talk leads only to poverty. (Proverbs 14:23)

People do not drift toward Holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. (D.A. Carson)

We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. (John 9:4)