Video
Consider the Ant and Be Wise – Mike Underhill
Sermon Preached on August 25, 2013
Notes & Scriptures
Proverbs 6:6-8
– Watch an ant work and you can learn to be wise! Ants are driven and work hard – without anyone telling it what to do.
– Ants carry 50x their body weight and can use their heads to protect their nest from intruders
– Ants started farming before humans
– Combine the mass weight of ants and it equals the weight of all humans
Proverbs 14:23 and Proverbs 14:4
– Hard work brings profit – talk leads to poverty!
– Work of an ox even brings an abundant harvest (he isn’t smart or attractive, he just works hard!)
– Nothing substitutes for hard work
– Make goals and believe 100% with no doubt
– It will happen!
– When you believe God will do it, then you need to open your eyes to all the work it will take
Laying a Foundation of Hard Work
1 Corinthians 4:20
– Power of God isn’t of talk, but of power (powerful deeds performed by God through us)
1 Corinthians 3:10-14
– We can talk about our plans, how our lives have changed, etc…but if they don’t see the miracles, it’s all irrelevant (Isaiah says a noble man makes noble plans)
– When you build with what’s worth more and takes hard work, it will last through the fire when it comes
– When you build with what’s cheap and only work the minimum, it won’t last through the fire (that will come – worries of this world, etc.)
– Are you living a cheap and easy life?
– The gateway to salvation doesn’t come cheap and it isn’t easy. If your life doesn’t match up to the way it should, then repent and make that happen!
John 4:36-38
– You don’t reap as soon as you sow – you reap later and you reap greater!
– Someone will thank you later and possibly elsewhere for all your hard ork in your current city right now
Things necessary to have this happen:
GRATITUDE
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
– When you idolize a person who’s not perfect, then they hurt you and destroy you!
– You’re more grateful for your life in God’s church when you see the destructive life you were once in and how empty that life was!
– This is what people search for their whole lives and die when they not find it!
– Are you critical and do you think you deserve this? Where is your heart towards the people in God’s church around you?
Matthew 9:37
– Harvest is plentiful and workers are few … pray for more workers and pray to be a hard worker! What’s your prayer life like? Because it takes an awesome prayer life to become a hard worker!
– We don’t have the ability to do God’s work – so depend on prayer so God can give you the ability to work hard
DEVOTION
1 Chronicles 29:1-5
– David gave mass quantities of his own gold, silver, etc. to God out of his devotion to God
– You can tell how devoted to God’s kingdom someone is by what they give to God and where your heart is while giving
v 6-9 – The people here gave freely and wholeheartedly to God’s kingdom to provide for a physical kingdom…but we have a greater cause today to build a spiritual kingdom
– We are laying down costly stones to build God’s kingdom
Acts 2:17
– Dream dreams and see visions – this is what’s necessary to see things happen in your region of the Bay
– Have the faith to steamroll into your region and have a vision and make your ministry crank!
1 Corinthians 15:58
– Give yourself fully and let nothing move you – so your hard work is not in vain
– When you fail, do not give up! Your hard work for God is never in vain (God remembers it all!)
Revelation 2:1-2
– Jesus echoes from heaven that He knows our hard work!
