Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church

13 verses to put that verse 8 in context. Romans 12:1-13. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Romans 12 beginning at verse one.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

For I say through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function. So we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having been given gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.

If prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith. Or ministry, let us use it in our ministering. He who teaches in teaching. He who exhorts and exhortation. He who gives with liberality. He who leads with diligence. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good. Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love in honor giving preference to one another.

Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer, distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.

Let us pray. Oh Lord, our creator, redeemer, and comforter, as we come together to worship you in spirit and in truth, we humbly pray that you may open our hearts to the preaching of your word, so that we may repent of our sins, believe in Jesus Christ as our only savior, and grow in grace and holiness. Hear us for his sake. Amen.

You may be seated. And those that have young children to go to the nursery may take them there now.

Bethany Younger gave me a call this week and told me about a radio show that was on Bill Gallagher’s show on CPAM, I believe, and he was talking about a report released this week from a think tank back east, I believe, and also the subject of a Wall Street Journal editorial. It was a rating of the states that were friendly to private schoolers or homeschooling or educational alternatives.

And while I haven’t actually seen the study, on the radio the man who was representing the institute and Bill Gallagher said that Oregon was ranked very high, and they actually said number one. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but maybe number one of the nation in terms of friendliness to homeschooling. The ranking was a combined ranking of the liberality of the laws as well as the number of homeschoolers.

Now, the Wall Street Journal editorial listed Oregon, I think, as fifth in overall friendliness to educational alternatives. So I don’t know what the distinction is there, but in any event, it was a source of some encouragement to me to hear the radio show, only about 15 minutes worth, talking about this phenomena. It was interesting that they only took two calls, and one call was from a liberal who was concerned that the liberals are the ones who always are now stepping in the way of innovation such as homeschooling and charter schools, etc. And they credited the teachers union with that kind of restraint on new and diverse ways to educate children.

But in any event, it reminded me of what some of us in this church—Howard L. and myself, our wives Debbie and Christine—went down and lobbied in the legislature one time. When Howard and I had no more vacation time left or couldn’t get down there, some of the old-timers from this church were part of that movement in 1985 to produce the kind of liberality of laws that Oregon has moved in the context of now for going on the second decade.

Now I bring that up one as an encouragement that individual actions when pursued diligently are greatly blessed by God. And I also bring it up because in the history in Oregon since that time the homeschoolers in general have been very diligent to both protect—excuse me—the freedoms that we have and to try to actually expand them. And they did that successfully without any involvement from myself really, the last legislative session. Homeschoolers have been diligent in this effort and as a result they have exercised a degree of dominion for a decade and a half now in the state relative to producing freedom and the ability to homeschool and for Christians to go about the education of their children in a way that seems best to each individual family, not constrained to send their children to the public schools.

It’s an example of diligence and I want to talk about that today. Diligence.

Romans 12:8 gives diligence as a basic requirement of leaders. As I was preparing the biblical ballot measure voters guide, I talked about this verse in one of the measures—the measure that would provide a review process by the legislature, force them to review certain administrative rules. We’ll be having today at the end of the day a discussion, maybe outside or in the library, about as many ballot measures as we can get through before everybody is wearied of them.

But I brought all 26 recommendations. I made 20 copies of it. This is the last week to make changes. It’s now at the typesetters. We can still make changes this week. My point is that in analyzing one of these measures, I came across this verse and it stresses the importance of diligence in leadership. And as I thought about this last month or two, it seemed good to say before we start another series—having concluded the series on worship—to address a couple of things explicitly that I’ve been thinking of for a couple of months.

The first of those this week will be diligence. We should be a community both in this church, the communities we represent and where we live, your Christian communities should be ones that are characterized by this biblical attribute of diligence and has a direct relationship to the proper exercise of dominion. So we’re going to talk about that today.

Next week, I’m going to look at Psalm 1 and the warnings—the three warnings that would impede our blessedness as Christians in the sight of God. Psalm 1, the first couple of verses we’ll be talking about next week. And then two weeks from today, I’ll be going back to Solomon’s prayer of intercession upon the completion of the temple. We touched on it briefly in our worship series on the long prayer of the church, the pastoral prayer, but I want to go back to it and stress the importance of diligence in prayer in a couple of weeks.

So we’re going to do—we’ll also throw in an election day sermon and a reformation sermon before we begin the next series. So today we want to talk about diligence and we want to encourage each other in the exercise of diligence in our homes and our families and our workplaces.

Well, what is diligence? It’s interesting that in Webster’s 1828 dictionary, it traces the root of diligence back to Latin terms. And basically it means to love earnestly in the original Latin. So it has this idea of choice and choosing, but it also has compounded with that the idea of love. And so there’s a love that chooses to engage in a particular activity because of love for that activity.

Webster in his dictionary in 1828 said that it is a steady application in business of any kind. Constant effort to accomplish what is undertaken. Exertion of body or mind without unnecessary delay or sloth. Due attention, industry. Diligence is the philosopher stone that turns everything to gold. And then in the definition we have a citation from Second Peter 1: “Brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” We’ll talk on that passage a little more in a couple of minutes.

Diligence has an idea of carefulness or care to it, something an attention to it, a heedfulness of a particular task, paying heed to it, not letting things go by. Proverbs 4 says, and Webster’s dictionary cites this proverb, “Keep thy heart with all diligence.” If you’re not familiar with Webster’s 1828 dictionary, it is a wonderful tool. It cites frequently, as it does in the definition for diligence, various verses from the scriptures as evidence of the correct meaning of the word. And there are at least three or four scriptures referenced in the dictionary definition of Webster’s 1828 relative to diligence.

So diligence in the New Testament—the particular word used in Romans 12:8—that if you’re going to lead you should do so with diligence. That particular word has reference to hastiness, speed. It has a time reference to it. There’s stress. There’s a second word that’s also translated diligence in the New Testament that word has the particular emphasis of work. It’s the same word family as ergonomic. It has the idea of labor or work.

So looking at the origins of the English term, we have this aspect that diligence involves a choosing and a loving of a particular task, maybe choosing to love the task that you’re called to do. So it has this idea of love as the basic motivation. And looking at what the scriptures tell us about it in terms of these words that are used, we can layer into this motivation of love the idea of speed, speed in doing a task, not hastily, but with haste. Frequently the same word that’s translated diligence in Romans 12:8 talks about haste—”Come with all haste.” With all diligence has a speed or time reference to it. It has, of course, a work emphasis to the term. So it involves industry and industriousness, labor, and it has this idea of carefulness, taking heed to something.

So we can sort of say that this word diligence is a word that implies a speed in doing things, attending to them. It involves a time reference. It involves labor, an action reference. It involves a mindset of being careful in particular tasks to do particular tasks. And it’s all wrapped up in the context of love for the job that God has given to us.

Speed, labor, care, and love. Speed, labor, care, and love are basic components of what diligence is.

And now, let’s turn to some scriptures and make some statements here that are rather obvious on the face of them. But this is what the Bible teaches about diligence, and we want to make sure that we understand what it teaches. And so I’ve done a brief survey here of some biblical texts on diligence.

And the first point, an obvious one from Romans 12:8, is that diligence is a fundamental requirement of leaders. Diligence is a fundamental requirement of leaders. I mean, there’s lots of characteristics that leaders should embody, but here at least in Romans 12:8, when Paul wants to talk about the way leadership should be engaged in, the one term that he funnels it down to is diligence. The one aspect of biblical virtues that Paul ties to the correct exercise of dominion in terms of being a leader among men is diligence—this idea of love, carefulness, speed and labor all coming together.

Leaders are to be diligent. The one characteristic given to us in Romans 12:8. Now what this means is that as we evaluate, for instance, the candidates for election this next month, diligence should be one of the primary requirements that we seek in the context of civil rulers.

Now here in Romans 12:8, I think the probable direct reference is the church, but the indirect reference is all roles of leadership. All roles of leadership should involve a degree of diligence on the part of the leaders both in the church and the state. And so this is a requirement of governance and it should be a requirement of the candidates that we support, specifically in terms of the church.

Paul repeats this to Timothy in the pastoral epistle of 2 Timothy 2. We read these verses, you know, and you got to remember where it’s at. And this is in a letter, an epistle written to a pastor. And so the pastor is told in verse 15 of 2 Timothy 2, the elders are told to be diligent. Timothy is told to be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Timothy is appealed to as a workman. And again, here we have kind of a summary statement to Timothy from Paul: if you want to be approved as an elder in God’s church, if you want to be approved as a pastor in God’s church, then the basic requirement of you is diligence to the task.

It’s not an intellectual requirement that’s hinted at. He has to have an intellectual knowledge of the word. This is to the end that the verse goes on to say, that he rightly divides the word of truth. But it’s as if God tells the pastor once he’s called to that position that if he is diligent in his study of God’s word and diligent to attend to the pastoral needs of the congregation, then he will be a workman that’s approved of God.

So Timothy’s requirements of approval are given here again in a summary form as diligence.

So we can see again how much stress the scriptures place on this virtue of diligence in leadership, certainly in the context of the church. Paul’s stress is not on the needed skill of the workman, as one commentator says, but rather on his diligence to assure that his work is approved by his employer, so to speak, his boss who is God. He’s a workman. The stress is diligence in his work before God.

So the pastor it requires serious persistent effort. It involves this carefulness. It involves this love for the task. It involves labor and it involves a speed in doing the task, attention to it without delay. That’s what the pastoral requirements are as given here to approve a pastor as a workman to God.

As this commentator goes on to say, it tells us what the life business of the workman is to be. What is the task that this worker who is called to be an elder or pastor in the church is to be? It summarizes these needed efforts as a unit. These efforts are summarized in the term diligence. He must be ceaseless, serious, earnest in his endeavors and labor in the context of the church.

Again, in 2 Corinthians 8:16, we have this stated in terms of pastoral care. Paul says that thanks be to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus. So Titus is a pastor and Paul is using Titus in the life of the Corinthians. He says that Titus has the same diligent carefulness as to you that I have. So Paul characterizes himself as a leader in the church as one who is diligent in his care and pastoral attention to the flock and he says that Titus is the same thing. God has put this diligence and care for you into his heart.

Now in terms of examples of diligence in the pastoral ministry, I suppose one of the most prominent examples of this is Jonathan Edwards, the great preacher who’s best known for his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” I read an article on the internet this last week by John Piper about the work of Jonathan Edwards as an encouragement to pastors to diligence and particularly in terms of their study of God’s word.

Jonathan Edwards—there’s a place where his manuscripts are being gone over and reproduced. There’s tons of them that he produced. He was a very diligent man in his writing and Piper got to visit this place and look at Edwards’ Bible. And what Edwards did in his diligence to study the word of God was he took his entire Bible apart page by page. Then he inserted blank pieces of paper between each page. So, you know, no word processors, no Bible study or study Bibles published at this time, just a Bible. He took it all apart, inserted blank pages between each page of the Bible, sewed it back together, made lines on the middle of the blank page, and used every page as a notetaking device for every page of scripture.

So wherever he was in his reading of God’s word, he wouldn’t read devotionally—I mean, he would, but it would involve careful study by him of the text and it was always with a view to noting what he saw, examining the text, writing down his observations of the text on the obscurest parts of the scriptures. According to Piper, Edwards would have these notes in his Bible. It’s an example of the diligence of Jonathan Edwards in creating the means whereby he could diligently attend to the study of God’s word.

They say he studied on an average 13 hours a day. 13 hours a day he would spend in the study of God’s word. Now, he had 11 kids and he would, I guess, use the evenings for relaxation, a couple of hours before he went to bed, but primarily what Jonathan Edwards did with the great bulk of his time was to diligently study to show himself approved as a workman of God, rightly dividing the word of God.

Edwards attended to the scriptures. When Edwards would go from place to place on horseback, of course, to preach, he would have his Bible. He would make notes to himself—notes—and then he put a piece of paper on his coat as a marker and command his mind to remember what he had studied in the conclusion to the theological or practical or pastoral problem he was working on according to the scriptures. So he used his horseback riding diligently to study the word of God.

Now how many of us make use of the tape players in our cars to study the word of God as we’re going about doing our work? Now I know I’m talking about a pastor. This is his calling as an elder in God’s church. But still you see, diligence uses the time that’s available for good, godly purposes.

Edwards followed through. And when he was at Yale he made a series of resolutions. I’m going to cite some of them here.

Resolved, he said, to study the scriptures so steadily, constantly and frequently as that I may find and plainly perceive myself to grow in the knowledge of the same. He had a plan for studying the Bible. He had resolved himself. He had to place this love upon the study of God’s word which exhibited itself in the context of his life.

Edwards in the words of John Piper exhorts us to redeem the time to do what our hand finds to do with all diligence with all of our might. His sixth resolution while at Yale was simple and powerful: “Resolved to live with all my might while I do live.” To live with all my attention and energy while I live. Resolution 5 was nearly the same. “Resolved never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it in the most profitable way I possibly can.” This is how he became a great man. Tremendous discipline, diligence, using his time, using his energy, having his mind set, his love set on the work that God has called him to do.

And as a result, making great strides in that way. Edwards went so far as I said—he spent 13 hours a day in his study—and one of the things that Edwards did which is a little controversial in Reformed circles is he decided not to make pastoral calls unless called upon. Edwards did not on a regular basis visit the homes of his parishioners, but when he was called upon he would attend to it. He had children in his house to teach them catechism frequently. He engaged in various small Bible studies away from his study but he didn’t do pastoral visitation unless called upon.

Edwards saw his primary duty—he did see the attention to pastoral care. He would drop his study immediately for pastoral work when people called upon him. And I’m sure he attended to the obvious problems in his congregation, but he saw himself really focused on this work of studying God’s word and not being distracted from that study of God’s word. He would apparently quite frequently not come to dinner if he was engaged in study of God’s word that was important for him and as he was on a track of being led by the Spirit in terms of a particular truth.

Edwards went so far as to examine his diet to eat food that was more conducive for the diligent study of God’s word. He had a sparingness in diet and he said that he wanted to eat. He only wanted to eat what might be as light and easy of digestion as possible. He said, “That I should doubtless then be able to think more clearly. I shall gain time and one I’ll gain time by lengthening out my life if I eat somewhat sparingly. Two, I shall need less time for digestion after meals.” So he didn’t want to be distracted by the fatigue of digestion if he ate too big a meal. “Three, I shall be able to study more closely without injury to my health because of this ability to focus and not being distracted by digestive difficulties. Four, I shall need less time for sleep. A lot of food, a lot of sleeping. Five, I shall more—I shall more seldom be troubled with the headache.”

So he attended to his health as a means whereby he could diligently attend to his calling as a pastor in God’s church, to be a leader whose life is marked by diligence as Timothy’s life was to be marked by diligence with attention to the word of God.

Now we may or may not agree with all the applications of this truth in Edwards’ life, but we can say that he is an example to us of the sort of diligence that pastors should take, elders should take in their study of God’s word.

You know, in the book of Acts when the deacons are ordained they are ordained specifically to the end that the elders represented by the apostles—the elders and pastors of the church—may attend to the study of God’s word in prayer. That is their focal point: to study the word of God and to make then application in the context of the life of the flock. And so Edwards was an example of seeing that wholehearted devotion to the study of God’s word.

We need today in Christ Church. We need pastors who are zealous about the word of God. We need elders who are going to do their job of oversight and rule by a careful and diligent study and knowledge of God’s word. That’s what we need.

It is so easy, particularly in middle age, for pastors to be tempted. I had a conversation recently with another pastor who is diligent about his work. He continues, as I do, to have dreams on occasion where he’s not prepared—because he’s so focused, he’s anxious, sometimes in an improper way. Maybe I am improperly sometimes, but he’s anxious in a positive way to attend to the study of God’s word and to preach that word to you.

And what he said was that he knows a lot of men his age, 50, 60 years old, who have lost that flare for the ministry, lost that zeal. Difficult times happen in the life of the church. You get tired. The ruins of the world take you off and you find some pastors today, many of them, you know, spending a lot of time doing other exercises, very rarely studying the word of God, preaching on notes from seminary or whatever it is.

The scriptures call us to the kind of lifestyle that Jonathan Edwards gives to the model of the church.

Now, this isn’t just a sermon to myself or to Pastor Wilson who’ll get the tape or to other men who are preparing to be elders. What it is, it’s an application point to us. I believe that God has placed us as a church now in a position of preparation for this next year. And I think that this really came home to me when I understood this sharing this building that God has provided to us this next year at the Lutheran Church.

We couldn’t implement a lot of what we want to do, but it really came home to me when we found out we couldn’t use three of the Sunday school rooms that we thought we could use. Well, we’ve been—yes—so as a result, the whole planning for Sunday school will be slower. We won’t be able to implement the full program until after the Lutherans have completed their building and moved out. We’ll probably add a couple three more classes in the next month or two, but we won’t be able to do what we’ve talked about for another year.

And I think that’s a picture of where we’re at as a congregation. I think we have to think of this next year as a way of planning, preparing. Some work, direct work can be done, but primarily preparing ourselves so that when we do have this building, we will be timely and industrious. We will be diligent about the use of this structure to be used for kingdom work in a year. That involves diligence in thinking through and making plans for that now.

And I’m going to touch on that several times in the context of this sermon. But here the application point is this. We sit as a church right now with two active elders, got four deacons. That’s good, probably the size congregation we are. And if God is going to continue to give us growth, a third elder would be a good thing. And so one of the things that maybe we should be praying about, preparing for, making diligent preparations for is the selection, training if necessary, and selection in the next year or so of that third elder.

And here what we have portrayed before us in these scriptures about diligence is that one of the primary characteristics of whatever leader—deacon, elder, whatever leader in the church or state—is diligence and specifically in the context of elders that we see as pastors, diligence in the study and knowledge of God’s word. So that begins to help us form ideas, prayers, action steps to prepare for the addition of officers.

Infrastructure building, I guess, is a modern day term they talk about in terms of preparation for work that needs to be done. And you know, there are things we need to do. Setting up groups of people to work on particular problems. We’ve got a database group of men who are beginning to work to think through long term: What are the database of the church members? Membership database, directory, a financial database, library data. How does all this stuff correlate and interconnect? We’ve got a group of people now who are interested in moving the library ahead. And we need to form them up as a group, set some goals and objectives, call us to be diligent as we move that particular thing together.

We need—Pastor Wilson would like to get a group of several people together who would work, meet regularly to continue to mature us in our goals and diligence in terms of the mission field. Sunday school requires work. The worship of the church requires work. All these tasks require work and they require now—people can get together, begin to think through how can we best implement what we need to do to grow as a church. How can we be diligent as a church if we’re to exercise leadership in the context of our community.

So that’s the first application point of this first point. The second one is as I said, we’re now involved in civil elections and we should examine candidates relative to their diligence and we should be diligent to rule as a citizenry in this state.

In Oregon we’ve got 26 ballot measures and whether you know we think it’s the best way or not, this is the way God has in his providence at this point in time decided to rule in particular areas. You’re called to do that. You’re called to exercise the vote and influence people to exercise their vote on these measures. And you should be diligent. If you’re going to vote, be diligent to examine the issues.

And if you’re not going to be diligent, don’t engage in leadership in that arena. Maybe you just don’t have time the next month to figure out how to vote. I would rather people didn’t vote than to vote in an uninformed, less than diligent way. Because the scriptures tell us if you’re going to act as a leader by voting and try to affect the direction of the state, you should do it marked with diligence on your part.

Okay. So, first of all, diligence marks the leadership in the church and state.

Secondly, diligence should characterize God’s dominion people. If the people of God are called to be the head and not the tail in a culture, then we should exercise diligence as a people as well. And so diligence, we would think, would find itself not just a requirement of leaders but of all men and women. And of course, we find this in the scriptures. In Romans 12:11, just three verses down, we’re told not to lag in diligence, but rather be fervent in spirit serving the Lord.

A general requirement of God’s people is not to lag or to fall behind in diligence. In 2 Corinthians 8:7, the Corinthians are exhorted to abound in everything in faith and speech and knowledge in all diligence. So all people are required in the Corinthian church to have before them the goal of diligence in their lifestyle.

Hebrews 6:11—Paul prays that they might be able to have the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end. And we cited earlier, 2 Peter 1:10 that brethren, the brethren of Peter are writing to are exhorted to be diligent to make their calling and election sure. How does that work? You know, there’s lots of commentaries by people about how this doesn’t mean that it’s our work that assures our salvation. Diligence is an evidence to ourselves and others of our calling and election as Christians. And so really what’s talked about here is the assurance we have as Christians comes from diligence.

But the important thing here is that we see what this verse says in context. Turn to 2 Peter chapter 1 and we’ll look at more of the context for verse 10. And we’ll begin at verse 5.

2 Peter 1 beginning at verse 5: “What we read in 2 Peter 1:5 is another evidence that all people are to have diligence and we see something more important than that though. I want to talk about it a little bit.”

Verse 5: “Now for this very reason also applying all diligence in your faith supply moral excellence. In your moral excellence knowledge. In your knowledge self-control. And in your self-control perseverance. And in your perseverance godliness. And in your godliness brotherly kindness. And in your brotherly kindness love. For these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the sure knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For he who lacks these qualities is blind or shortsighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.” And that’s the context for then the exhortation to all of us to be diligent to make our calling and election sure.

Now, if you just read this once, you might think that okay, so diligence is part of the virtue package that all Christians are to have. But what I want you to notice here is that diligence is before and behind this list of virtues that’s to be represented by the growth and sanctification, by the maturation of God’s people as they exhibit the Spirit-filled life, the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in their lives.

What he says here is before he gets to this business of having faith and supplying excellence and to your moral excellence knowledge and to your knowledge self-control, self-control perseverance. He begins this list by laying at the front diligence. Now for this very reason also applying all diligence work on these character qualities. You see, and actually in the Greek the word diligent precedes the word apply. So it would be more like “Now for this very reason also diligence—apply as you have faith and more like excellence and knowledge and purity, etc.”

The point is that diligence is like a cornerstone virtue of the entire virtue package. It’s the way according to this text we’re to supply virtue or diligence rather as we grow in Christian virtues and graces. And the end result of that process in verse 10 is this idea of being diligent to make our calling and election sure. We make—we assure ourselves of our calling and election. We assure ourselves that our sins are forgiven, that if we die tonight we’re going to be in heaven. We assure ourselves of that as we apply diligence and see evidences of Christian virtue in our lives. That seems what the text is talking about.

So there’s a due aspect of the Christian faith. Now diligence doesn’t come from ourselves. It’s the gift of God. The text previous to this makes that clear. The diligence flows out of God’s grace to us. But and that’s true theologically, but in terms of the application of diligence, what this text wants us to do, what God wants us to see as in seeing diligence as an attribute we’re all to have is that diligence is key to the development of Christian character. It is a cornerstone virtue.

So without diligence, you’re not going to get the rest of that stuff. But with diligence, you are going to get that stuff. What is diligence? It’s love for the task that God has called us to do. It’s labor. It’s a timeliness, making use of the time and it is a carefulness to do the task God called us to do. So see, that is the foundation virtue that produces or to be laid alongside of these virtues that God will build into our lives.

So diligence is a cornerstone virtue and diligence is a virtue that is an evidence to us being kind of cornerstone picture of all the other virtues combined. It’s an assurance to us as Christians. It removes fearfulness that maybe we’re not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, maybe we’re not there. So all believers should have this emphasis on diligence in their lives. And it’s a critical emphasis to make because it is a cornerstone virtue in the providence of God for all the other virtues.

Three, diligence should characterize our exercise rather of our vocation. So in general, our lives are to be marked by this cornerstone virtue of diligence, which is part of the process whereby God sanctifies us as his dominion people. And specifically now, we can apply this to our vocations. And this is a rather obvious application. We don’t need to spend much time on it, but you know, it is important for us to consider this.

At our prayer meeting last week, as we shared the prayer requests the way we do every week, I thought to myself and I prayed this actually: you know, I gave thanks to God that the adults of our church are not bored. We are a busy people. And what we usually find being prayed for in our prayer meetings, at least that I’ve been part of, is better time management, attention to detail, what should I do and not do, help me to attend to my kids while I’m going about the busyness of my vocation.

You know, it’s we’re not bored. We don’t have lifestyles that are characterized by a lot of excess time because we’ve been urged really to this character trait, I think, as part of the life of our church: diligence. And so I guess what I’m saying here is that as we think of the progression and maturation of our church, I want us to move toward this next year of service and good stewardship of this building with diligence and preparations.

But I also want us to understand that we are at sort of a transition point. Our church is nearing two decades of growth, 20 years old. And we’re passing the mantle. We’re passing the torch for the next 10 years to the next generation. And while all the parents here, I think, adults here are characterized by a great deal of diligence, love for the callings that God has given to you, love for the task as being husbands, wives, mothers and fathers, I think it’s exceedingly important that we train the young people of our church, both in our families as well as in our church collectively, to be diligent.

We don’t want our kids being bored either. And so one of the ways we want to train them is to train them that vocation is to be diligently worked. Ecclesiastes 9:10.

The Westminster Confession of the Westminster Larger Catechism in its comments on the eighth commandment talks about how one of the implications of the eighth commandment is that all men are to engage in lawful calling and diligence in that calling and the proof text they give for diligence is Ephesians 4:28: “Let him who stole steal no longer but rather let him labor diligently with a love for the task, a timeliness of the task, labor to the task, a carefulness of the task that the one’s doing, to labor diligently working with his hands what is good that may have something to give to him that has a need.”

Proverbs 10:4 is also given by the Westminster divines: “He who is a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.” Not the hand of the easy day trader jumping in and playing the day trading stock game like a roulette wheel. That’s not the way you get rich. You don’t get rich by winning the lottery. The scriptures say you get rich, you attain material possessions through diligence. That is the way God’s word says it happens. We’re to be diligent in our callings.

Proverbs 27:23 says to be diligent to know the state of your flocks. Now, we can make application to the church: the pastors, the elders of the church must be diligent to attend to the state of the flock. But I think the immediate application is that those guys had real flocks. And in their care of the flocks, even as a herdsman, they could do that in a lazy way. They could do that in a diligent way.

You’ve got a calling from God. If you’re an adult employee, the men particularly’s vocation is from the same word as vocabulary. To vocate is to speak or to call. To use the term vocational calling is redundant. That’s what vocation means. It’s a calling. It’s a calling from God. Now maybe next week God will call you to a different task. But this week, wherever you go tomorrow morning, that’s where God has called you, assuming it’s a lawful task to engage in.

And you should think of your work as God calling to you tomorrow morning and say, “I’ve got a mission for you. Go sell bread, go do body estimates on cars, you know, go deliver mail, go provide accounting help to people.” See, God calls you tomorrow morning to engage in your employment. And as a result, he expects you to do it diligently, timely, with a love for it.

So vocational calling—redundant, but nonetheless, that’s what we refer to it as. Ecclesiastes 9:10: “Whatever your hand finds to do tomorrow when you go to work, what your hand finds to do, do it with your might.” What Edwards applied, saying do it with all your might. Try to focus your day on what you’re supposed to do. “There is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you’re going.” This is it. This what God calls you to do.

Everybody wants to know God’s will for their life. Tomorrow morning, your will is to go to your place of employment if you have one and to be diligent. And you know what? You will shine as light in the midst of a darkened world today if you’re diligent. The scriptures tell us it’s always been like that. The hand of a diligent makes rich. You’re the one that’s going to be honored if you’re diligent.

But I think it is particularly true today, young people. It is going to be particularly easy for you to shine in this world and to exercise dominion. All you got to be is diligent because this culture as it slides away from Christ has lost diligence. Many of you know the horror stories of trying to get phones hooked up here, DSL. Just getting directory assistance these days is no longer a simple test, at least not for me.

Well, when George was in the hospital a couple weeks ago, I had to make three calls to directory assistance to get the number of the hospital. I was first incorrectly given the number of a chiropractic clinic. I was given the number of an acupuncture clinic. And then finally, they gave me the number of the hospital. The supervisor had to do it. Then when I asked for credit for the other two calls, he said, “Well, I’d have to call another number.” Diligence.

If you’re diligent to attend to your tasks, young men and young women, you will exercise dominion in the context of our world. Diligence in vocation is particularly singled out as a specific application of the general diligence we’re all called to.

Four, diligence should characterize our united participation in worship. It’s obvious, I suppose, that if our worship is the model for life, if we are not diligent in our worship of God, if we’re not diligent about the Lord’s day, then we probably won’t have extra diligence in the rest of the week. So what do we need to do? We need to attend to the Lord’s day, to the Christian Sabbath.

Again, the Westminster Larger Catechism in its section question 147 on the Sabbath asks, “What about the Sabbath?” It says, “Well, to that end, to the end of sanctifying the Sabbath correctly, we are to prepare our hearts and with such foresight, diligence, and moderation to dispose and seasonably dispatch our worldly business that we may be the more free and fit for the duties of the Sabbath day.” We’re to prepare. Old Testament, the day before the Sabbath was referred to, the New Testament referred to as the day of preparation. And all six days in a way are preparation for living out the Lord’s day.

People say, “Well, I come to church usually.” Now, I thought of that. And there’s a song by Leonard Cohen, “Everybody Knows.” And he talks about one of the lines: “Everybody knows you love me, baby. Everybody knows you really do. Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful, give or take a night or two.” Years ago, I heard R.G. Rushdoony preach on fidelity and faithfulness. And he said, you know, it doesn’t—you can’t call yourself a faithful husband if you only have one or two affairs a year. That is a denial of faithfulness. You see, fidelity to one’s wife means every day.

And fidelity to the Lord, our groom, as we come before him as the bride, I think means to make every effort to clear up the affairs of our life in whatever way we can. I know some things are required. I’m not talking about ox in the ditch stuff, but to make every effort to be here on the Lord’s Sabbath. We should be diligent here.

And if we’re not diligent in getting to church on time or getting to church in a mindset that is prepared to read the hear the word of God preached, prepared to make the Lord’s supper, if we’re not here in that kind of a mindset on the Lord’s day, we’re not going to do it the rest of the week. This is the proving ground. This is, you know, the matrix that flows on into the rest of our lives. This is the capsulization of who we are as people.

We should be diligent here to prepare for the day to attend the worship of God’s people, God’s worship of God with his people. We should come here ready to sing out. It is not diligence in worship if we stand or sit and don’t open our mouths when songs are sung. You know, sometimes you got a cold or something you worry about. I understand that.

You know, I remember at the gym, one of our young people—I won’t embarrass him by saying he’s not here, so I can’t embarrass him. Well, he’s not here. But anyway—one of our young people sing out very loud. And some people, “Oh, that doesn’t sound too good.” I thought, “Praise God. Let’s sing loud.” Yeah, we want to train ourselves to sing skillfully. But I’m telling you that if you think diligence in the workplace will be blessed by God, if you’re not diligent in the basic work we have to do in life, which is to worship our creator, then we’re not going to have the diligence and we’re not to be able to exercise dominion the way God calls us to do as a leading people in the context of our culture.

This is right. We should be diligent to make proper preparation for an engagement.