Weapons Formed Against Us - 2 - Sloth

Scripture: Luke 12:32-40

Luke 12:32–40 NIV

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 35 “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. 37 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. 38 It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the middle of the night or toward daybreak. 39 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

8/10/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Mission Moment

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 2: Mission Moment

Powerhouse

Opening Prayer:

God of Abraham and Jesus,

you invite your people

to contemplate heavenly things

and urge us toward faith in you.

May your coming among us

find our doors open,

our tables set,

and all your people ready to greet you. Amen.

Sloth

Sloth

Many of us live like our activity chart is constantly climbing—more challenges, more responsibilities, more busyness.

Looking at a chart like that and saying it out loud makes us realize that that's probably not the way life is supposed to be. But if we compare that to how many of our goals or callings we’re trying to fulfill, the lines may go in opposite directions. We’re getting busier, but accomplishing less of what matters. Because sometimes the older we get, the busier we get, but the less we accomplish. And when we’re not busy? We get anxious, like we’re doing something wrong. We’ve learned to stay in motion even when we don’t know where we’re going. That kind of life can look productive but leave us spiritually empty.

This month, we're focusing on the challenges we face as disciples of Jesus, trying to follow him faithfully. For many of us, we can think of a short list of temptations that seem obvious to us. We know about a handful of specific addictions that we could fall into, that could derail and destroy our lives.

We can think of things like the seven deadly sins and come up with cartoon caricatures in our minds to depict them in extreme or idealized ways that don't often match up with our personal experiences. Those temptations, those kinds of sins, can feel distant from us, like problems other people have, not ones that are going to affect us, especially when we've worked to put ourselves in safe places, sticking close to safe people.

Sloth is a weapon forged against us. And it wears disguises: harmless scrolling, procrastination masked as perfectionism, staying comfortable instead of stepping out in faith. It may look slow and harmless, but it’s persistent. It keeps us busy without faith, anxious without purpose, and tired without rest. In Luke 12, Jesus isn’t talking about laziness. He’s warning about people who stop watching, stop listening, stop preparing for Him. He calls His disciples to be dressed and alert, to live in the flow of God’s work, free from distraction.

There are holy moments when you find yourself in the right place at the right time, doing exactly what Jesus wants from you. It’s not just being active; it’s being aligned. Artists call it the flow state. Jesus calls it faithfulness. It's when you are not anxious. You’re not distracted. You’re not trying to prove anything. You’re just doing the work God gave you to do, and you know it matters even when you don't know exactly how or why.

If we think greed is a challenge just for the few who are truly wealthy in our eyes, sloth must be a problem only for those few individuals who have bigger personal issues holding them back. But Jesus shows us that none of that is true. Sloth may be a slow and unseeming weapon of the enemy, but it is persistent and pervasive. Sloth doesn’t slam doors—it slowly closes them while you’re distracted. And it can run our lives and lead us to ruin as it keeps us from following Jesus faithfully.

Sloth isn’t just about doing nothing—it’s about doing everything except what Jesus is calling us to do. We often picture sloth as laziness, as lying on the couch all day. But sloth is sneakier than that. It shows up in our distraction. It hides in our packed schedules. It’s running from one task to the next without ever pausing to ask, “Is this what Jesus wants me to do?”

Last Wednesday in Bible study, we talked about prayer—the kind of intentional, focused prayer that doesn’t require deep theology or long words. Children can do it. So can those at the end of their lives. And yet, focused prayer is one of the hardest things to sustain. I’ve sat in prayer rooms for hours where I spent more time fighting distractions than actually praying. That’s sloth in action—not because I was inactive, but because I struggled to stay present with Jesus.

Our tradition is rooted in movements that took prayer seriously. The early Methodists. The Church of the Brethren. Communities transformed not by programs, but by prayer. One small Moravian group in the 1700s began a round-the-clock prayer vigil. Each couple took an hour. No one told them when to stop. Their prayer vigil was not for a weekend or a month. They kept their prayer vigil going for over 100 years, and God used their focused faithfulness to change the world.

Jesus warns us in Luke 12 that sloth, greed, and fear are connected. We fill our lives with possessions and distractions, thinking they will protect us or numb our anxiety. But the busier we are managing those things, the less we have to offer Jesus. That sloth (or distraction) is a weapon used against us to keep us from confronting our fears, and from listening to His voice.

The opposite of sloth isn’t busyness—it’s focus. Just as gratitude breaks the power of greed, focus breaks the grip of distraction. Focus puts us in that “flow state” of discipleship, where we aren’t frantic, but faithful. Where we’re not just doing more—we’re seeing Jesus more, hearing His voice more, and doing what He asks us to do. That’s what it means to follow Him faithfully.

Ready to Go

Sloth doesn’t just slow us down—it blocks the flow of grace through us, cutting off how Jesus wants to use us to prepare the world for His return. Jesus doesn’t call us to burn out, but to be ready: to live in a state of faithful responsiveness, where our time is His and our hands are open. In our battle against sloth and distraction, we need to find focus. But what do we focus on? Trying to focus without having a specific target is what leads us into sloth and distraction. So, where does Jesus want us to aim our focus? Preparing for His return.

In Luke 12, Jesus tells a story of servants whose master could return at any time. They didn’t know the day or the hour, so they had to be ready every moment. Some had daily responsibilities, others special assignments—but all were expected to keep the master’s estate in good condition until he came back. We can’t use ignorance as an excuse to do nothing, nor can we wait for a special sign to start working. He has already given us plenty to do: pray, study His Word, show compassion, share our faith, and use our gifts to serve others.

Do you know how many sermons and books are written every year telling people that this is the year Jesus is coming back? Some teachers and authors preach the same sermon and reprint the same book every year, and only change the date. Jesus did not do that. He grew frustrated when his disciples asked when he would return because knowing the time is not the point. Staying actively focused on the work at hand and being ready at any time for Jesus to return with new instructions is the point.

Faithfulness grows when we prepare for the work before us. We pray better when we set aside time and focus, not just when we feel like it. We serve better when we’re ready before the need arrives. And just like the Israelites before Passover, we keep our bags packed—ready to go wherever the Master sends us.

Readiness means two things: doing what we already know Jesus has called us to do, and keeping watch for the next thing He asks. Keep your lamp burning. Keep your bags packed. Keep your ears open. When the Master calls, you won’t have time to start getting ready—you’ll already be ready.

Preparing for Jesus

There is no one-size-fits-all way to prepare for Jesus. There are many small things we can do every day for Him, for ourselves, and for others that work toward the greater purpose of growing our relationship with Him and helping us to become the people He calls us to be. Stay awake. Stay alert. Actively seek Him. If we are not seeking, we will miss both what He is doing around us and what He is doing in us. Preparation looks different for each of us, but it always involves the same heartbeat—prayer, Scripture, service, generosity, and attentiveness to His voice.

It's like when we take swimming lessons. There's only so much the teacher can tell us about what to do before we get in the water and start doing it. There's a lot that we learn from Jesus after we jump in and start following him. The enemy will use the weapon of sloth against us to keep us from jumping in and getting started. And it may come across in 10,000 different forms and change every single day. But Sloth truly comes at us in just two ways—pulling us away with distractions, or holding us back with discouragement.

I've heard stories about dogs living on properties with invisible fences that connect to a shock collar they wear. Some dogs are just free-spirited and hard-headed, and they will run and roam free no matter how many times their collar set off an alarm or shock. But I've heard about other dogs who will get zapped once and will never cross that boundary ever again. Sometimes the enemy jerks us around by invisible chains and keeps us from going after Jesus and doing what He calls us to do.

Sometimes we set out to do the things we know Jesus wants us to do and find ourselves distracted by the empty coffee cup, by the grumble in our stomach, by a different set of chores, or a grocery list on the fridge, or the phone, or the computer, or the TV, or the radio. And after losing an hour or two, we discover that we've just been running in circles and are back to trying to start that work that Jesus had for us this day. Those are some of the forms that the weapon of sloth may use to keep us from Jesus and from following Him faithfully. But there are other times that sloth keeps us from following Jesus by holding us back, by things like shame, like those second set of dogs that had one or two bad experiences.

We have moments when we sit down to spend some intentional time in prayer, or we open up our Bibles to try to learn more about our Lord and Savior, Jesus. And our minds are filled with thoughts of unworthiness. We feel like we don't understand enough, that we're not good enough, and that we don't deserve Jesus' valuable time and attention. We remember it didn't work out all that well last time. So what's the point of trying again? We get distracted, give up, leave our post, and open God's house up to be broken into by thieves... all because we think we've already failed.

We hear the sound of our collars beeping and our chains rattling. And even though Jesus has told us all that is forgiven, it's a new day. We have a new start. And it's time to try again. The enemy tries to slow us down and distract us with all the sounds and feelings and memories of a past that isn't even there anymore because Jesus washed it clean.

So, how do you prepare yourself for Jesus and overcome this weapon of sloth that slows us to a standstill? Pick one thing that you know Jesus wants you to do and do it. If you set your aim and your focus on that one thing that you know without a doubt Jesus wants you to do, the enemy will come at you and give you the fight of your life to stay focused. Your phone will ring and buzz more than it will the rest of the week. However long it takes you to do that, you will spend 90% of that time finding ways to stay focused and remember what it is you're doing. However far it takes you to get from here to accomplishing that task, that path will be lined with lures and temptations to pull you aside.

The enemy will throw everything he has at you to stop you from doing that one thing because he knows if you do that one thing, then you'll be a step closer to Jesus. You may hear his voice telling you what the next thing is. And if you've already made it through everything the devil has to throw at you to get to the first thing, he won't have very much left to stop you with when you go after the second thing, and the third thing, and the fourth thing. And before you even realize it, you'll be walking in the spirit, free from distraction, focused on following Jesus, moving in that flow of grace, and watching as it flows into you and through you, accomplishing all that he desires and more than you could ask for.

The devil wants you to spend your life thinking about your distractions. Jesus wants to set you free to follow Him today. Like the paralyzed man who heard Jesus say, “Pick up your mat and walk,” this is your moment. What is the one thing you know He’s calling you to do today? Go and do it.

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus,

We know the first thing You call every disciple to do is to follow You, to leave their old life, and to step into a new life with You in Your kingdom. Some of those first steps are among the most difficult we ever take.

We are learning that each day is a new day with its own first steps to take. Help us today, Lord, to take that first step, and the one after that, and the one after that. Until the distance between us is gone, and we find ourselves in the flow of the Spirit, following in step with You.

In Jesus' name, amen.