Prepare Your Bread In Summer - Proverbs 6:6-11

Minister: The Lord calls - I have shown you mercy and redeemed you. Now, by my mercies, present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to me. This is your spiritual worship.

Congregation: By your mercies, O Lord, we offer ourselves to you. We come to worship.

†PRAYER OF ADORATION AND INVOCATION

O God, we trust in your power to create, to sustain, and to enable. But we could not trust if we did not know that you are always near. Be with us Lord, as we are gathered here to worship you. Help us not to check our minds or our hearts at the door, but enable us to bring all that we are to you, so that you might make us into what we ought to be. We pray this because of, and in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

†OPENING HYMN OF PRAISE #212

“Come Thou Almighty King”

†CONFESSION OF SIN AND ASSURANCE OF PARDON based on 1 John 1:8; Isa. 1:18

Minister: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Let us confess our sins to the Lord our God.

Congregation: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things we ought to have done, and we have done those things we ought not to have done.

Have mercy upon us, O God. Spare those who confess their faults. Restore those who are penitent, according to your promises - declared to us in Christ Jesus our Lord. Grant, O merciful Father, for his sake, that we may live godly, righteous, and self-controlled lives, to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

Minister: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. Christians, your sins are forgiven.

Congregation: Thanks be to God!

CONTINUAL READING OF SCRIPTURE Ephesians 3:7-21

Elder Paul Mulner

THE OFFERING OF TITHES AND OUR GIFTS

PASTORAL PRAYER & THE LORD’S PRAYER

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

†HYMN OF PREPARATION #172

“Speak, O Lord”

SERMON Proverbs 6:6-11 // Preparing Your Bread In Summer

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION

Almighty, eternal and merciful God, whose Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path — open and illuminate our minds, that we may purely and perfectly understand your Word and that our lives may be conformed to what we have rightly understood, that in nothing we may be displeasing to you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Text: Proverbs 6:6-11

Proverbs 6:6–11 ESV

6 Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise. 7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, 8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest. 9 How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep? 10 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, 11 and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

AFTER SCRIPTURE

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever. Amen.

Introduction: The Subtle Drift

You’ve got a big test tomorrow. You haven’t studied all that much, and you have a few hours before bed. All of a sudden, it’s the perfect time to reorganize your notebook. Now is when all your pencils must be sharpened.

There’s a presentation that you need to create. You’re feeling the pressure to get it done. But you’ve really been meaning to work on your health, so you go for a run instead.

There is a hard conversation that needs to happen with the kids. There is something that needs correction. But today was a pretty peaceful day. Today, that thing that needs correcting didn’t bubble up to the surface and cause the usual problems. That means today, I’ll pass it on to another time.

We know how this works.

There are things that need to be done—duties clearly in front of us. And yet they are met with hesitation, qualification, and postponement.

Proverbs 6 draws our attention to this dynamic. It addresses sluggishness—but not in a simplistic way. It is not merely saying, “Stop being lazy.” It is uncovering something deeper and broader. The text is alerting us to something we might not see at first glance.

The sluggard is not simply inactive. He lacks vision. He lacks future-minded wisdom. And the result is that poverty—and I think a poverty of many kinds—comes for him. Perhaps not only financial poverty, but poverty of usefulness. Poverty of trust. Poverty of calling. Poverty by failing to be who God made him to be.

So the question for those who would be wise is this: What kind of poverty might be quietly advancing toward you? What might wisdom help you see now before loss catches up to you suddenly?

Today we will let the text guide us to Go To The Ant, Consider, And Be Wise, seeing how God calls His people to Spirit-enabled, future-minded stewardship over self-deceiving ease.

I. Go to the Ant — The Positive Pattern (vv. 6–8)

II. Consider: Hear the Warning — The Slow Drift (vv. 9–11)

III. Be Wise: Embrace the Calling — Gospel Diligence (Expanded)

I. Go to the Ant — The Positive Pattern (vv. 6–8)

“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.”

The immediate call for wisdom is to “go to the ant.” And there is something to be learned in just that command, before we are ever told what the ant is doing.

There is wisdom in the illustration and the posture. Here you have a man who must bend himself down to observe the ant. He towers above it, but to learn he must lower himself and crouch down to see it. And what he finds there is an indictment upon himself. Here he is with extraordinary gifts compared to the ant, he is made in the image of God, and yet he is the one wasting them. The ant can’t speak, write, teach, sing, or match any number of the gifts that this man possesses, and yet she is diligently doing what she can. The ant has no gospel. The ant has no Sabbath. The ant has no Spirit. And yet she acts. If a creature without covenant can act wisely, how much more should covenant people?

Going to the ant puts what he should be and could be into perspective. It exposes the poverty of squandering the grace of being made in the image of God. The ant is small, but faithful. Almost invisible and unnoticed, just faithfully plodding away. The sluggard is gifted, but neglectful.

What do we see the ant doing?

Self-Initiating Diligence

She works “Without having any chief, officer, or ruler.”

There is no one standing over her shoulder making her work.

You can have experiences where you think that you are diligent, but you later realize it was really that you had someone pushing you. If you play a sport, you might feel like you know how to work hard because you were pushed in practice. But when it’s time to train on your own, it doesn’t happen. The same can be said at work. We hustle under observation but don’t keep the same ethic when no one is looking.

The sluggard may look busy. He may “work” when eyes are on him. But his activity is governed by appearance, not calling.

The explicit lesson here about sluggishness and wisdom is motivation. Diligence is steady obedience to present duty, no matter who is watching. Diligence sees value in the work beyond appearances. Diligence has a vision to see fruit in the work. God wants us to mature into self-starters. A fruit of the Spirit is self-control—believing that God will use and bless our obedience and that our labor will not be in vain. Sloth isn’t only “lack of discipline”; it’s something to be put to death and replaced with Spirit-wrought obedience.

Laziness here is not mere inactivity. It is the willful neglect of present duty for the sake of immediate ease.

We also go to the ant and see

Timely, Future-Oriented Diligence

“She prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.”

Two parallel actions matched to two opportunity seasons. When the window of time is open, she acts—because later need is foreseeable. The sluggard lacks foresight. He does not expect the harvest of grace that is reaped in obedience. Wisdom pays attention to the season and considers what faithfulness might be needed at that time.

Think about what this might look like in seasons of life:

Students and teens are in a unique season with time. Life is busy, but this could be a season to pursue God seriously on your own—not only when an overseer is present. To know why you exist. To know what you were made for. To seek wisdom before college, marriage, and vocation.

If you are single, you are in a season before the responsibilities of marriage. What opportunities might you have now that you won’t later? One temptation may be to relax on purity, telling yourself you can work on that seriously one day. No—the time for that is now.

In difficult seasons —health or finances—what might it look like to be faithful now? Will I only tithe when I can spare it? Will I pursue the good of others when I don’t feel well? Some seasons of sickness come to stay.

In hospitality and church membership, I have seen people pull their lives back from accountability and community. They don’t let the church get too near them. But the poverty of shepherding, support, and challenge catches up. Often this leads to moving from church to church, looking for a quick solution, believing the problem is the church.

Empty nesters may have more time. Titus speaks of older saints investing in those who need wisdom. This is a season to seek out young families, to teach them about marriage and parenting, and to steady them with God’s grace.

Wisdom acts now when action is possible.

The ant reminds us that work itself is not the problem. Work existed before the fall. Adam was placed in the garden to cultivate and keep it. Dominion was part of his calling. Work is not a curse. After the fall it became difficult—thorns and thistles, sweat and resistance. But when we refuse the sweat, the thorns do not disappear. They overgrow.

Laziness is not merely impractical. It distorts our created purpose.

II. Consider: Hear the Warning — The Slow Drift (vv. 9–11)

“How long will you lie there, O sluggard? When will you arise from your sleep?”

Two rhetorical questions assume a pattern of continued inactivity (How long? When will you rise?)

The danger is not in taking a little rest. It is staying down when duty calls. The sluggard’s defining feature is prolonged postponement.

Notice the repetition: “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.” Ruin doesn’t require a dramatic decision—just repeated small deferrals.

• A little neglected prayer.

• A little unaddressed bitterness.

• A little postponed correction.

• A little spiritual drift.

It is gradual. Small compromises. Unresisted appetites. Accumulated avoidance. But what grows in inches eventually strikes in miles.

Forms of Sluggishness: How we do this?

Delay: “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.” (Proverbs 24:30–31, ESV)

• There is usually some sense of not understanding the gravity of the time. In the intro I described a scenario where a consistent relational trouble needs to be addressed, but you get days that are peaceful, and you take them as a win. You take them as a needed break from the tension. But so often that is abdication. It’s a failure to lead, to trust God, to shepherd your family, to put off for another day what you know needs to be done today.

Distraction: Secondary tasks replace primary duties. “Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.” The sluggard may be busy—but on the wrong things.

Perfectionism: Refusing to begin unless excellence is guaranteed. Fear of the perfect keeps you from the good and faithful.

Imagined obstacles: “There is a lion outside!” Hypotheticals stall realities. Prudence becomes a mask for fear.

Beneath these forms often lies pride.

The sluggard is The sluggard is described elsewhere as “wiser than seven men who can answer sensibly” (Prov. 26:16). He trusts his own assessment. He couches avoidance with the language of caution, standards, or timing.

No one plans to ruin their life. They just say “later” long enough.

The Poverty That Follows

Proverbs speaks in general patterns. Not every poor person is lazy. Not every diligent person is wealthy. But the pattern is real.

Financial poverty. Waste compounds. Fees accumulate. Debts rise.

Poverty of trust. Others cannot rely on you. The sluggard is “vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes.” One day people simply stop asking. Not angrily. Not dramatically. They just stop depending on you. Your spouse stops asking for help. Your children stop expecting consistency. Diligence has a corporate dimension.

Brother to the destroyer (Prov. 18:9). Destruction by omission is still destruction. Sins of omission are real violations of God’s law. The sluggard thinks he has done nothing wrong because he has done nothing at all.

Poverty of calling. Gifts stagnate. Stewardship collapses. Their tools rust. We are saved by grace, but for good works. Laziness resists the direction of sanctification.

Poverty of witness. Patterns become visible. And the diligent stands before kings (Prov 22:29).

“A little sleep” does not feel dangerous. But our text says that this poverty comes upon you like a robber—sudden in effect, though slow in arrival.

• You do not see him coming.

• You do not negotiate with him.

• He does not accept excuses.

• He does not care why you delayed.

III. Be Wise: Embrace the Calling — Gospel Diligence

The ant is not merely an indictment. It is an invitation.

But we need to be careful here, because Proverbs can be heard in two equally deadly ways.

Some hear this and collapse into shame: “I’m always behind. I’m failing. I never do enough.” Others hear this and rise into self-salvation: “I can fix this. I will grind harder. I will prove myself.” And both responses miss the point—because neither one is faith. Shame forgets grace, and grinding replaces grace.

The gospel gives not excuse, and not self-justification but obedience flowing from union with Christ.

Wisdom Gives Ordinary faithfulness

No chief, no overseer—just wise working.

And that means, first, we need to recover the dignity of ordinary faithfulness. Being tired does not mean something is wrong. A tired parent. A diligent student. A faithful worker. Fatigue is often evidence of faithfulness, not failure.

But ordinary faithfulness is not only about working; it’s also about being willing to do the next clear duty when it’s not dramatic, not applauded, and not immediately rewarding. This is where the sluggard struggles: not because he cannot do hard things, but because he refuses unseen obedience.

Wisdom Gives Future-minded vision

Just as the ant “prepares her bread in summer”, wisdom thinks beyond appetite. Faith sees harvest before it appears. Diligence is plodding and stacking, sowing before reaping. It sees what God does with the works He created us to do.

The sluggard does not believe scarcity will ever come. He does not believe obedience matters. He does not believe consequences eventually accumulate. Sloth is short-sighted unbelief.

And Proverbs is pressing us to see that unbelief isn’t only what happens when someone shakes their fist at God. Unbelief also happens when someone quietly says, “Tomorrow.” When someone continually trades long-term faithfulness for short-term ease, what’s underneath is not merely poor scheduling—it’s a functional theology: “God isn’t worth obeying right now. God won’t really reward my obedience. It won’t matter.”

Wisdom Gives Joyful obedience

We do not work for identity. We work from identity. Union with Christ frees us from laziness and from anxious overwork. Diligence is not frantic striving. It is steady, joyful obedience in the tasks God assigns.

And here is where Christ is not merely an example—He is the center.

Christ does not only forgive the sins we actively commit; He also forgives the good we refused to do. He bears not only defiant rebellion but drifting neglect. He bears “a little sleep, a little slumber” guilt—the quiet postponements, the half-measures, the duties we knew and didn’t do.

But the gospel goes further than pardon. Christ didn’t merely die; He also obeyed. He is the faithful Son who did the Father’s will without delay and without drift. He could say, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent me.” His righteousness is credited to us by faith.

That kills moralism at the root.

And it also kills despair. Because if you have failed in diligence—and you have—your hope is not that you will finally become the kind of person God can love. Your hope is that in Christ, God already loves you, and now He is remaking you.

Because God approves of you in Christ, you are now free to work without using your work to justify your existence.”

Wisdom Gives Spirit-enabled steadiness

The ordinary means of grace—Word, Sacrament, prayer, Lord’s Day worship, —form diligent Christians.

If sloth is short-sighted unbelief, then the cure is not sheer willpower. The cure is renewed faith, and God renews faith through appointed means.

The Word does something your self-talk cannot do: it confronts the sluggard’s inner liturgy—“later… not now… it’s fine.” It restores reality. It reorders your loves. It gives you a future bigger than immediate ease.

Prayer humbles the proud heart that wants independence. Sloth often masquerades as weakness, but underneath it can be self-rule: “I will decide when I obey.” Prayer says, “Lord, I’m not self-sufficient. Give me strength for today’s obedience.” It wages war against drift.

And then Sabbath: Sabbath is not escape from calling; it is rhythm that protects diligence from idolatry. Biblical rest is obedience. Sloth is avoidance dressed as rest.

Diligence includes Sabbath obedience. Laziness avoids work; unbelief avoids rest. Both distort trust in God.

True diligence works hard and rests well.

Refusing to work is distrust of God’s design. Refusing to rest is distrust of God’s provision.

So the Lord’s Day is not permission to disengage from responsibility; it is God’s weekly rebuke to both the sluggard and the workaholic. To the sluggard, it says: “You cannot call avoidance ‘rest’ and slap My name on it.” To the frantic striver, it says: “You are not God. Stop pretending you hold your life together.”

And this is why the means of grace are not optional: they train you to live as a creature—dependent, faithful, steady.

So go to the ant—and don’t merely see an indictment. Hear an invitation: the same grace that pardons sluggards transforms them into faithful stewards.

So that hard conversation. That neglected discipline. What obedience have you been postponing? Are there any conversations you have been avoiding?

Winter is coming—not as a threat, but as reality. And grace trains us to prepare in summer.

So go to the ant.

Consider her ways.

And be wise.

PSALM OF RESPONSE #128B

“Blest the Man Who Fears Jehovah”

THE MINISTRY OF THE LORD’S SUPPER

Minister: Lift up your hearts!

Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord.

Minister: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. Congregation: It is right for us to give thanks and praise!

CONFESSION OF FAITH

The Nicene Creed p. 852

INVITATION TO THE LORD’S TABLE

Table sermon notes/idea:

As we come to the Lord’s Table, we do not come presenting our diligence to Christ, but receiving His. Where we have drifted, delayed, and excused — “a little” neglect, He has obeyed fully and faithfully in our place. His body was given and His blood shed not for the industrious, but for sinners—including sluggards. And now, united to Him, we are nourished not only with pardon but with wisdom and power: strength for steady obedience, renewed love for our callings, and grace to resist drifting ease. The Table reminds us that our future is secure in Christ—therefore we are free to return to our present duties with quiet, future-minded faithfulness.

Minister: Here is the table of the Lord; we are gathered to his supper for a foretaste of things eternal.

This table is for all who have faith in the risen Lord and are united with his Church in baptism. If you do not repent of your sin, you must not come. If you do not trust in Christ alone for your salvation, you must not come.

But if you confess your sin and rest in him, come. Come, you who are fearful, to find your rest in him. Come, you who are weak, to be made strong in faith. Come, you who are broken, and be made whole. It is not I who invite you, but the Lord. You who trust in him, come.

Congregation: What shall we render to the Lord for all his benefits toward us? We will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord. Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us; therefore let us keep the feast. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed are they who trust in him.

PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

Father, thank You for giving us Your Son. Thank You that His body was given and His blood was shed for sinners like us. Feed us by faith, strengthen our love for Christ, and send us out in gratitude and obedience, for His name’s sake. Amen.

DISTRIBUTION OF THE ELEMENTS

SHARING OF THE LORD'S SUPPER

THE WORDS OF INSTITUTION - 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

Take, eat, drink, remember, and believe.

CLOSING PRAYER

Almighty and merciful God, we give You thanks that You have refreshed us with this holy supper. Confirm our faith, strengthen our repentance, increase our love, and assure us again that we are heirs of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with You and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, forever. Amen.

†OUR RESPONSE #234

Tune: The God of Abraham Praise

The whole triumphant host gives thanks to God on high;

“Hail, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!” they ever cry.

Hail, Abraham’s God and mine! I join the heav’nly lays;

all might and majesty are thine, and endless praise.

†BENEDICTION: GOD’S BLESSING FOR HIS PEOPLE

The Lord gives strength to his people the Lord blesses his people with peace. Amen.

Grace Notes Reflection

No one plans for poverty, and it’s rarely something you can see on the horizon. But the sluggard is always moving in that direction—slowly, little by little, in increments he doesn’t even notice—until he arrives at the place where poverty comes swiftly and devastatingly. So says Proverbs 6:6–11.

Wisdom diagnoses what is happening in the sluggard by bringing him to the ant. The ant has no ruler, and yet she remains faithful. The sluggard, by contrast, won’t work unless he is pushed, prodded, and watched. He works from fear, or guilt, or pressure—not from faithfulness, joy, and belief. The wise know that God not only made us to work, but that he blesses our work.

Is anyone having to push you or remind you to step up into work or leadership in your life?

The ant also prepares in summer because winter is coming. She does now what cannot be done later. The sluggard, though, will let an opportune season pass by without even noticing it. Maybe the sluggard didn’t know what to do. Maybe he thought the task was too hard, or the results too impractical. But again, he is operating out of fear.

Think, for example, of a tough parenting conversation. Often we don’t know how to approach the hardest challenges in parenting. We don’t know what to say or how to say it. But that will not be a valid reason later, when drastic consequences come. We will not be able to say we were excused. We must engage faithfully in the seasons God has given us. Yes, we will not lead and speak and act perfectly—but that is not the point. The difference between the faithful and the sluggard is that the sluggard abdicates. He takes no action at all. And that is inexcusable.

The text asks, “How long will you lie there? When will you arise?” (Prov. 6:9). This proverb isn’t about making you feel guilty for taking a nap. It’s about the person who perpetually neglects the duties in front of him. In other words: how long are you going to do nothing?

Like the parable of the talents, the wicked servant is the one who buried his talent because he did not believe the Lord would use his labor. And what he had was taken away. The sluggard isn’t merely lazy—he is exhibiting faithlessness. He doesn’t understand, or doesn’t believe, that God turns a profit on our labor, and that it will never be in vain.

This proverb also shows us how it happens—and how it will end. The sluggard folds his hands “a little” and sleeps “a little,” and poverty comes upon him suddenly, like a robber. The measures the sluggard takes seem so small they don’t even register on his radar. These delays aren’t sin, necessarily, he tells himself. He’s not a bad guy—he’s a busy guy. He’ll get around to it.

But while the ant takes little steps of diligence and ends up richly rewarded, the sluggard tiptoes his way to destruction. That should make us think hard about how much margin we give to delay in our lives. How long will we tolerate a sin? How many times will we pass over forgiveness or a kind word? How many steps will we take toward indulging lust? It’s easy to tell yourself it’s just one more small step—but the results will come fast and furious. Like a robber who doesn’t care what your excuses were or what your plans were, consequences will strip you and expose you.

It turns out wisdom has a lot to see in the ant: go, consider, and be wise.

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