Pillars of Faith: Diligence

Here are sermon notes from my last sermon:

Psalm 139:1-6; 14 (NRSV)

1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;  you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

Sometimes I’m not what some would call a smart person. When I found out I was going to be preaching on “diligence” as a pillar of faith, I was pretty sure I knew what it meant, but it’s a big word for me so I had to make sure. Here’s what I found:

Cambridge dictionary: the quality of working carefully and with a lot of effort

Careful and persistent work or effort

Steady, earnest, and energetic effort: devoted and painstaking work and application to accomplish an undertaking

Have you ever thought about how your work ethic is important and applies to scripture? Well think about the prophet Jeremiah when God tells him that before his birth God had called him to be a prophet, for his whole life.

5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”    ~Jeremiah 1:5 (NRSV)

God is at work in ourselves and at work in one another. So God knows us before we know ourselves and God knows our every move, every day, so why not do something with that knowledge? As I looked at the Psalm 139 and diligence I boiled to down to being diligent meant being:

1. Constant
2. Attentive
3. Hard Working

First, diligence must be Constant

The core of Psalm 139 assures us that God is with us every moment of every day. God’s omnipresence means that God knows us completely. So God is with us every moment of every day. God knows we are hard-working and when we are being lazy. As some of you know I am not a fan of Dallas sports teams. As far as the NBA goes, I’m a Spurs fan so bear with me. The Spurs recent history has really boiled down to constants. A constant leadership model. Winning five titles and being in the playoffs for 22 years leading up to last year speaks to a leadership model of consistency. They have had the same head coach for 24 years and have also had pillars (see what I did there) in the middle such as David Robinson and Tim Duncan for so many years provided consistency. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. That consistency of leadership. An official Spurs blog is titled Pounding the Rock which in basketball terms means pushing the ball down inside in the paint closer to the basket. But is has a deeper meaning when you read the sign in the Spurs locker room:

When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it…yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.

This statement is referred to as the stonecutter’s creed and it speaks to consistency and continued work when trying to complete a task. Practice after practice, day after day, they work. Getting better every day. The first 100 blows may not yield the outcome they hope for but eventually the work pays off. Having to work hard to complete a task. A stonecutter splitting a rock has to be an arduous task that times time and effort.

Second, diligence means being Attentive

Take a look at the first three verses of Psalm 139: O, Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

God is diligent in knowing us. God is so diligent that he knows every detail for every single one of us. God knows every detail, down to the number of hairs on our head. I don’t even know how many hairs I lost in the shower this morning. But God knows the count of every hair on every one of our heads. God knows us so well that he knows our actions and our thoughts. We have the time, the opportunity, and the capacity to do so much with our lives. God knows this. The core of the psalm assures us that God is with us every moment of every day. God’s omnipresence means that God knows us completely. 

Third, diligence involves hard work.

My grandpa (along with my mom) was the person who taught me the value of hard work. I wanted to share a story with you about him. Grandpa and Grandma lived in Aurora, Colorado which is a suburb of Denver.  In the picture, if you get past the colorful shorts, bright orange Broncos shirt, and dog Blecka you can see a garden. Grandpa had a huge backyard and in the very back was this garden that he worked on constantly from the time he retired from the Air Force until he moved to assisted living. And every time we visited we would play baseball in that backyard and lose baseballs in that garden that had tomato plants that reached over our heads. And every time we visited we had to “earn our keep” by helping in that garden. If we wanted to play baseball out there and trounce around and step on vegetable plants and such we had to help with the upkeep of the garden. My grandpa taught me many, many lessons but none was as important and reinforced as much as teaching me the value of hard work. 

These three points lead to God. Think about that. 

1.  God is constant because God is always with us
2.  God pays attention to detail
3.  God gives us the ability to work hard

The power of Psalm 139 is its honesty. The psalm is like a mirror revealing us as we are: “fearfully and wonderfully made.” (v. 14) So if we are fearfully AND wonderfully made what does that mean for us. It means, we are fearfully made because God has created us and not we ourselves. We are fearfully made, and we are wonderfully made: we have unique capacity for so many things: love, relationship, restoration, and redemption. We have to capacity to do so, so much BECAUSE God created us. It is clear that the author of Psalm 139 believes that God knows all about him. God has looked deeply into the psalmist and knows him. God knows the very thoughts of the psalmist: “Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.” (v. 4)

God knows our movements and thoughts intimately. Not only does God surround us but God is involved in our very existence, so why not let God work through us?

So how does diligence apply today?

We as individuals are perhaps less known than at any point in history, especially with COVID over the last fifteen months. We have more online communication than usual, our attention is divided between family, work, recreation, etc. We now have the more meetings via zoom which doesn't allow for much time to talk before or after meetings-hence less personal connection.

As we continue to get back to normal and see COVID on the decline we are going to have to be diligent in our relationships. Because that is where God starts with us, with a relationship. We can restore relationships and build new ones. After all, if God knows us truly in and out then shouldn’t we give our very best. Humans want to belong, to share lives with others, to love and be loved, to feel valued. This psalm shows a sense of belonging: being search and known by God. The speaker in Psalm 139 seems to know he belongs to God. God watches over us from the moment of our being made until we die and God knows us better than we know ourselves. 

So back to work ethic and think about this verse from Proverbs

3 Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established. ~Proverbs 16:3

This is one of my favorite and most straight forward bible verse. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. To me it means that if we commit our own work and work ethic to the Lord, the plan will take care of itself. Just remember that means our plan is in sync with God's plan.

I was trying to think of an example of how diligence was important. Last week I had a conversation with Julio Casablanca and a friend of his and I wanted to share what we talked about.

So if you can’t tell this is a guitar, or at least the makings of one. A friend of Julio’s gets pieces and parts of old guitars and then takes the time to fixed them and restore them. Julio and I met with his friend Lynn to talk about a connect group centered around the restoring old guitars.

Making these guitars is a process. These are some pictures of the process from start to finish.  As we talked it was such a cool conversation centered around restoring guitars and applying meaningful biblical concepts throughout the entire process of restoration. 

The group will meet this summer to go through the entire process of restoration and as we go to write a curriculum of talking points that can be used when we have this group available for youth in the Handley neighborhood and Trinity community to fellowship with one another and work on the restoration process. The point is that we have to be diligent and that takes consistency, being attentive, and a strong work ethic. Rebuilding guitars or building relationships takes diligence. During the process of building the guitars we will be building relationships with those who are working with us. We will see where the conversations take us but I have a sense we will be able to bring God into the conversation on ideas such as brokenness, making mistakes, working hard, and restoration. I can't wait to see where these conversations lead. (Feel free to contact me at kevin@trinityarl.org if you want more information)

Below is the finished product from the first picture that you saw. Now how long do you think it took for Lynn to restore this guitar from start to finish? Any guesses?

It took him seven months to finish this particular guitar. Well you know how some musicians name their guitars. Well Lynn gave this one a name and I thought it was very fitting. It’s name: Lazarus-because he brought the guitar back from the dead.

As we begin this connect group it will be really cool to see guitars "brought back from the dead" but that's not why we are doing it. We are doing it so we can bring some relationships with others and with God back to where they need to be.

Grace & Peace
Kevin

The Book of Joshua

1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying, 2 “My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites. 3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory. 5 No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them. 7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful. 9 I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”   ~Joshua 1:1-9 (NRSV)

(As we continue reading through the bible in 2021, we wrapped up the book of Joshua leading up to Palm Sunday and here are my sermon notes-edited for blog purposes.)

My son Carson had a track meet a couple of weeks ago. And as Will and I were talking he brought up how a relay race being a good metaphor for the Israelites on their journey to the promised land. In a relay race the baton is passed from person to person from the start of the race to the finish. The baton had been passed from generation to generation for God's people. Through generations they had seen the ten plagues (and how they were spared). They had seen Moses part the Red Sea, and they had defeated armies they had no business defeating. They had witnessed miracle after miracle and despite this they doubted God time and time again. They didn't trust in God fully. They made this amazing comeback and on the last leg of the race (reaching the promised land) they looked back toward Egypt and dropped the baton, they tripped at the finish line. They were so close to the promised land but generations didn't make it there. Moses got so close that he saw it but didn't cross the Jordan River into the promised land. This is where we pick up the story.

The book of Joshua begins very definitively with God saying: "Moses my servant is dead." God doesn't waste any time helping Joshua deal with the immediate reality of his new leadership position. Moses is gone and it's Joshua's turn to step up and lead the people into the promised land. Although Joshua has been Moses' assistant he will lead differently that Moses and there is a lasting legacy of Moses. Moses' name is mentioned 57 times in the 24 chapters of Joshua. And remember that Joshua is leading the people into an unknown land, now it may be the promised land, but they are human (which means they doubt) and they are not sure what awaits them when they get there or what life will be like. They have been wandering in the desert for a long time and to top it off they have a new leader leading them into uncharted territory. Put yourself in the position of those people now following Joseph. After wandering for years and having seen an entire generation die off they are finally there...with new leadership. But what they had to do was trust Joshua and more importantly trust in God and follow him into the promised land. He was taking them into uncharted territory.

Joshua is obviously not as well known as Moses but he is qualified. In fact he has quite the resume: 

1. He accompanied Moses up the Holy Mountain where the tablets were received (Exodus 24:13-18)

2. He stood watch at the tent of meeting before the tabernacle was built (Exodus 33:11)

3. He was one of the two spies of the twelve spies who gave a positive report to Moses believing they could take the land with God's help (Number 14:8-9; 26-34)

4. He was God's chosen servant and divinely appointed by God (Deuteronomy 34:9)

And more importantly he believed that God was all powerful, that God keeps promises and that God would always be with him (Joshua 1:5;9). The book of Joshua is a story of the fulfilled promise of God for the people of God. After wandering for the desert for forty years, Israel claimed their inheritance and enjoyed the blessings of the land that God had prepared for them.

Have you ever heard of Lewis and Clark? You probably have. They were the two men commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to find a water passage from the Louisiana purchase territory straight through all to way to the pacific Ocean. There’s a moment when Lewis and Clark and their expedition reach the top of a mountain hoping they would find water passage to the pacific ocean (even though the notes from the expedition noted more mountaintops in the distance as much as three months earlier) One of the historians wrote this:

“He was approaching the continental divide-the spine of the Rocky Mountains. No American citizen had ever been there before. This he believed was the Northwest Passage: the goal of explorers for 300 years. It was expected to be the crowning moment of his life. Instead there were more mountains.” 

As the group went up the Rocky Mountains they held onto hope of their previously held assumptions. Once at the top there is the realization that there is no water passage to the Pacific Ocean, only more mountains. History is defined by this moment. They could turn around and go home or adapt and move forward into the unknown. We could turn around and go back or push forward in uncertain times.

The Israelites had the same choice when Moses died. Their leader of 40 years had just died and they were not yet where they wanted to go. They’d been complaining about and even talked about going back to Egypt into slavery. Their divinely appointed leader of 40 years dead. Moses died at 120 years old and Joshua was a only 59. Now I don’t know if those are their exact ages but just know that Moses was twice as old as the Israelites new leader. At this moment, they had a choice to make: push forward or go back. As Christians we have a choice to make. We can turn around and go back or we can push forward in uncertain times. Lewis and Clark decided to adapt and push on. Joshua and the Israelites decided to push on as well. We need to push forward into an uncertain future.

Which brings me to Jesus and some of the similarities between Joshua and Jesus:

1. Joshua and Jesus come from the same Hebrew root word meaning salvation

2. God commissions Joshua just as God commissions Jesus in Mark's gospel

3. Both of them brought the people of God deliverance from the enemies of God

4. The both led (or lead) the people of God into the promised land

Not to take anything away from Joshua but there is a slight difference between the journeys of Joshua and Jesus:

Joshua crosses the Jordan river and leads God’s people into the Promised Land; Israel had to fight to retake the Promised Land.

Jesus leads us into the promised land, which he has already conquered for us.

So how can we step forward in our commitment level to God? Well how about we look at perhaps the most well known part of the book of Joshua:

3 You shall march around the city, all the warriors circling the city once. Thus you shall do for six days, 4 with seven priests bearing seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and all the people shall charge straight ahead.” 

(Joshua 6:3-5 NRSV)

So they march around the city for six days and then on the seventh day they march around the city seven days and the walls magically came tumbling down because of their marching? The walls came down because of their obedience to God.

So let me ask you this: what walls in your life would come down if you were obedient to God and put your whole faith and trust in God like Joshua did? And later, like Jesus did? There is no way that Joshua could have become the leader of Israel after the death of Moses if he hadn’t put his trust fully in God. There’s no way that Jesus would have rode into Jerusalem in triumphant celebration on that Palm Sunday knowing that he would suffer and die just a few days later if he did not obedient to God’s plan.

You see none of us are capable to lead in these difficult times if we are not trusting in God. There’s too much going on, there’s too much hurt, too much anger, too many issues to deal with in this uncharted territory. We’ve never been here before. But we must be strong and courageous and trust completely in God like Joshua did. If you step forward in faith and trust in God fully, there is nothing that can stop the message of Christ. A message of hope, even in uncertain times. And don't forget, God will be with you wherever you may go.

And I'll end with something my wife pointed out after I preached this sermon that I thought was a cool insight. In the first chapter of Joshua God says "for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." In the last chapter Joshua says "but as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." It's a cool way to start and finish the book. So Joshua is assured of the Lord being with him as he begins his leadership and at the end of his life he tells others that he will serve the Lord. It offers a nice wrap up to the book of Joshua.

Grace & Peace,

Kevin