LIVERMORE — At the July 28 North Livermore Baptist Church service, the congregation was welcomed in by Pastor Bonnie Higgins at 9:30 a.m. to begin the service. The Call to Worship, Invocation/Lord’s Prayer were recited. The hymns that were sung were “Who is on the Lord’s Side”, “Freely, Freely”, and “I Will Serve Thee”. The service ended with “Go Now in Peace”. Linda Lyman is the organist, Janet Diaz is the pianist, and Lew Lyman leads the music for the congregation each week.

The sermon, titled “Laziness in Your Life” and scriptures from Colossians 3:23-24. Pastor Bonnie began by saying that we know that God created the heavens and the earth and in six days He created this earth for us. The land, water, mountains, animals, fish, birds, and mankind. Even though God did not need to rest, He set an example for us to rest on the seventh day.

God worked hard for six days and rested on the seventh. Showing us that we need to work hard in our life and take some time to rest also. Working hard and resting from that work is not considered lazy. But there is a way to be lazy. Being lazy is when you know you have work to do and you decide that you don’t want to put in any effort to get it done, so the work gets left undone.

Work is part of our daily lives. God created Adam to work in the Garden of Eden. Even though Adam was in Paradise, he still had to work in the garden. God expects us to work. It matters to God that we are working. We need to stop making excuses not to work. We make excuses by saying we don’t have the time, we are over scheduled, our bodies ache, that really isn’t my job, etc. We make up so many excuses and all God wants us to do is to work and to please Him.

We need to work in different ways in our lives. We need to work on relationships, not only with each other, but with God Himself, in our work, in our church and in our communities. God has given us the will to work, and many times we come up with an excuse, it is too hard, no time, why bother, etc. How would you feel if God said that to you and your salvation? God came up with a plan to save us and He put the work into it.

How do we overcome being lazy? We need to be diligent, not lazy. A lazy person hardly works, but a diligent person works hard to complete the task/mission they are on. We need to be able to go the extra mile and complete what is in front of us. We need to remember, we are not working for this world, but we are working for God. God tells us that we are serving Him in all the work we do, so we need to put the effort into it. The Bible, God’s Word, tells us to work heartily, in everything to bring glory to God.

If we decide that we don’t want to work, we will go hungry, we receive nothing in return because we put forth no effort, and we don’t get ahead in our lives. This goes the same if we don’t put God first and tell others about Jesus Christ. If we don’t put any effort into spreading the Good News of Jesus, we won’t hear those words “Good and faithful servant” when we meet Jesus. That is part of our work here on earth, to spread the love and our faith in Jesus to others. We need to imitate and be an example of hardworking people.

God tells us not to be lazy, but to work for Him.

Announcements: we will be collecting crackers for the Food Pantry in August. Bible Study – Tuesday at 1 p.m.