The Slow Work of God

I got a haircut.

Looks good, doesn't it? I call

it a reverse mohawk. Yeah.

Some of you got that too. Yeah.

Well, good morning. Yeah, welcome to

fake spring that we're having right now.

I mean, we've got some beautiful weather out there, but if you haven't lived here

very long, let me just say one word to you,

psych. Yeah, but that's all

right. Yeah, let's jump right in. Stand up. We're going to read

a passage from the book of Mark.

He also said, this is what the kingdom of

God is like. A man scatters seed on the

ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or

gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though

he does not know how. All by itself,

the soil produces grain, first the stalk,

then the head, then the full kernel in the head.

As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to

it because the harvest has come. Father, I

thank you for life. I thank you for

your Word. I pray for

the life of the Word to be born in us today

through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. In Jesus' name,

amen.

In the early, well, actually early 1988, I know

exactly what year it was.

I was the acting director of the Africa

Multination for Christ Institute in Harare, Zimbabwe.

And yeah, acting director, they let me do that

for a couple months and then they, yeah, that's why they say

acting director. And it must have been

January, and I had a student come to me and he said,

"Pastor, I need to tell you that I'm going

to leave the school." And I said, "Oh, well, I'm

sorry to hear that. Why?" And

he explained the reason why. And I—

it sounded strangely American, quite frankly, but

I said, This was the reason they gave me. He said, "Yeah, Pastor, you know,

the first year that I was here, oh, the

Spirit was moving. It was so rich. It

was so strong. I could feel his presence every

day. This year, it

ain't happening," was basically what he had to say.

He didn't say, "It ain't happening," but

that's what he said. And I said, oh,

that's a very bad idea. And I

went into explaining to him seasons and the

importance of seasons. So because you just went through a season

where you saw this fruitfulness and you saw this growth

and everything, but now there needs to be a season of

dormancy when it's not, oh, look

at this, but where the roots are growing and where you're being

established. That's what happens. During those seasons of

dormancy. And if you don't have that, if a tree doesn't have

that, then it won't be too long before maybe

an ice storm will come along or maybe even just a puff of wind and

the tree is gonna fall 'cause it's not

established. See, you gotta have that season.

Last week, Pastor Kevin brought an excellent

sermon. He didn't use the word seasons, but he said

times. And he talked about there being 3 times

that we experience in our life. And he mainly

focused on tough times. And I feel like, you

know, that was— it was a timely message for sure. And it

resonated with a lot of people.

But the tough times are actually

the easiest times to get close to God.

Whenever something comes along and just, you know, cuts us off at the

knees, so to speak, you know,

that's when we seek God. In fact,

you know, that's often, for casual churchgoers, that's often

the only time they come is when something's going on that's

hard. And so, oh, I need to be there.

Tough times tend to either take us in one of two directions. They

either drive us to our knees, or they tend

to cause us to raise our fist to God. And he's okay with

both. He's certainly okay with

us being driven to our knees and going, help me.

You know, I'm at the end of my rope. And you know, and God's going,

good. 'Cause now maybe I can do something.

My strength is made perfect in weakness. But even if

we're shaking our fist at God, he doesn't mind that because

a relationship, I've learned over the years that a

relationship, and usually this is a marriage

relationship, it's only really

over when you don't care anymore.

We don't care, you know. If you care enough to be mad,

if you care enough to be angry, there's a chance, you

know, that fire can be rekindled

there. But it's not just in marriage, it's all

relationships. If you get to where you don't care anymore,

the relationship is over. And if you're shaking your fist

at God, at least He knows you care. And you

know that you care.

He also touched on, though he didn't spend a lot of time talking about it,

he touched on the good times. These are

dangerous times. The good times are.

They're very dangerous times. Often in good times, we

tend to forget God because, hey,

what we need God for? You know, things are

good. Things are going well.

Moses told the children of Israel over in Deuteronomy, he said this,

"When you have eaten and are satisfied," I've been

well satisfied lately, "praise the

Lord your God. Be careful that you

do not forget the Lord your God. Otherwise, when you eat

and are satisfied, your heart will become proud and you will

forget." the Lord your God. My

dad used to bemoan people

becoming successful, so successful,

as he put it, they started making money hand over fist, and

then they drift away from the Lord. You never see them again. Did

that ever happen in Coalfield? Yeah, happened in

Millersville too. And it kind of happens in Smyrna.

As well because we become satisfied. Oh, I got

this now. Well,

that's an Old Testament quote. Over

in Revelation, in the New Testament,

Revelation chapter 2 and 3, there are letters written to churches.

Revelation 2 · chapter mention

And in chapter 3, the last letter

that is written is to the church of Laodicea. And that's generally

the one that we consider to be the worst one. 'Cause

Jesus didn't have anything good to say about them and

kind of blasted them. But here's why.

You say, I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need

a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched,

pitiful, poor, blind, naked.

Whoo, yeah.

There's an important sermon here. But I'm not going to preach

that this week. I'll let somebody else

preach it at some other point in time. And if you needed to hear it,

the Holy Spirit has already preached it to you. So there.

I've only got time for one sermon today, and I want to focus on

the third time that Pastor Kevin talked about

the other times, the

90 to 99% of the time. Of our

lives? Where's God then?

What's going on? What's going on there? What's he doing?

You know, we sometimes read the Bible and it

seems that these characters, these people in the Bible, stuff was happening

to them all the time.

But if we look a little bit closer, I mean, take Abraham. We

know a good bit about Abraham. Important

guy.

But consider this, he lived to be

175. And if you take all of the

events in his life that we know about and you put them all

together, we got maybe about 5 or 6 months there.

What was happening the other 174 and a half years

of his life? He was having

days like us. Not every day, not

every year, not every decade brought the

command to sacrifice Isaac,

brought the war with invaders or

disturbance in his household or the

opportunity to entertain the Trinity.

Moses, we know a lot about Moses. And

there was a whole bunch of stuff that happened before he left Egypt.

He was raised in Pharaoh's palace and

trained in all the ways of Egypt, murdered a guy,

took off as a fugitive. Between then and when

he was sent back to Egypt, it was 40 years.

What was he doing? Working,

tending sheep, got married, had kids.

Just regular ordinary stuff. And the day

that he saw that burning bush, you know, he was at work

and he was kind of,

I don't know, ambling. I don't know, what do shepherds do? I mean, when it's

not sharing sheep, sharing time, I mean, They

flea dip or something?

No, really. And so he was doing

what shepherds do, I guess, you know, writing songs and looking at the stars. But

he saw this bush that was on fire. And apparently that's not

a highly unusual thing in dry, arid

desert-like conditions. But he looked at it

long enough to realize, wait a minute, that bush is

on fire. That bush was on fire. It's gone.

And I remember yesterday that one's not burning up.

He's paying attention. It's what he was doing.

And who do we know the most about in scripture? Well, we know the most

about Jesus. And we

know more about him than anyone else. Yet, We have

a partial record of less than

10% of Jesus' life, less than

3 of the 33 years He's here. And if

we have these records,

you know, some may think, well, you know what, that's— I hear that you're saying

that there was other part going on, but you know, they got it

done in 3 years. I mean, God just, wow. Oh,

no. You see, God's work that Jesus did

actually started about 6,000 years before that.

And it's still going on, as a matter of fact.

And today, Peter says a

time will come when unbelievers are going to be saying this. Where

is this coming he promised? Ever since our ancestors

died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of

creation. Ain't no Jesus going to come down from the sky and He can

save you. Well, you're an unbeliever

because he sure is. And I believe that he sure is. And I

don't have that kind of attitude except sometimes

maybe, maybe I'm going,

where is this job that God promised me?

Where is this future husband, this future wife that's

out there somewhere that I've been looking for for all these years?

Where's this ministry that God was going to open up for me?

We have a tendency to go there for

sure. But our lives aren't all highs and lows.

Our lives are mostly comprised of

ordinary days. Can we accept that?

This is what the kingdom of God is like.

There's planting, there's harvesting, there's events, there's

fruitfulness and stuff going on. All the rest is God

doing His slow work

that we don't really see and we can't really

understand. We

can sing about it. Even when

I don't see it, He's working. And even when I don't

feel it, He's working. Because He never stops. He never

stops. He never stops working. God is working. Yeah.

And that's true. And we see it and we believe it and we're

singing it. And then we stop singing and we forget it

because this day is just a regular day.

Romans 8:28, in everything God is at work for the good. And we

Romans 8:28

know that in everything God is at work for the good of

those who love him and have been called according to his purpose.

Except when we don't know it.

Eugene Peterson wrote a book, written

several. He's the guy who translated The Message Bible. But he

wrote a book called "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction."

I haven't read it.

Sorry, sorry, Wayne.

I've read several of his books though, and they're really good.

I'm sure this one is too, but

I've read the title

and I think I'm preaching the sermon.

He didn't coin that phrase though.

Ah, it was first said by the

philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. And

yeah, he's a philosopher. We don't do that anymore. But he wasn't a

believer. But he used that phrase

to describe the process that results

and has always resulted in the long run in something

which has made life worth living.

That's pretty good. There you go.

And Nietzsche's problem was that he did not know what ultimately makes life

worth living. Now, Peterson did,

and so he wrote this book and he titled it this because

what it is, is it's about a steady lifelong journey

with God.

It's the pinnacle. Of what Nietzsche was

trying to describe. It's what makes life worth living.

I don't know if you caught it when I put the book's

cover up, but he subtitled it, "Discipleship

in an Instant Society." Oh,

hallelujah. In the

early '80s, I led a young adult Bible

study. In our house and, excuse

me, we, there were probably around 20

or so regulars that came. But one night

there was this young man who, it was his first time to be there. I

mean, you know, when you're only talking about 20 people, you know if somebody's

new who hasn't been there before. And he came with this girl who

came all the time to it.

He seemed to enjoy it. Wade, were you there that night or was it— I

think it was Todd who was there.

He seemed to enjoy it and he left and took the girl home. And

some people always would hang out and talk. And Todd, Wade's brother,

I was talking with him. He was the last one out the door. And the

young man came back. And he came

back to say,

How can I do this real quick? How can I get where you guys

are? I mean, really quick. And

I could tell it was all about this girl. 'Cause you see,

she really was into what was going on and

he could see that, you know, we were, you know,

not on the same plane he was and stuff. And he wanted to get there

'cause that'd help her to be more into him.

And you know, Todd and I just looked at him

and said, there is no quick way. I mean, you know,

there is no— oh, there's got to be. No, there's not a quick way.

We never saw him again, so I'm going to assume that

he did not begin along obedience in the same direction.

But that was 40 years ago.

It's gotten worse since.

And there is no quick way to do it. And you know, you have to

kind of be careful because there are those who have packaged it and who

have, will sell it to you. And

all you gotta do is just buy this, listen to this, watch

this, and wham, next thing you know,

you're going to be a disciple.

Well, you may or may not be a disciple, but it won't be because of

that. You see,

I was brought up

in a rural Southern Pentecostal environment.

That is my dad in Slater's Creek in

Millersville baptizing

somebody.

Lovely tractor tire up on the

bank there. But I recognize that

spot. I think I was baptized in it a couple of times, come

to think of it.

Now, I want to say before I go any further into this,

how much I greatly appreciate my heritage.

I mean, seriously. It was— Michelle and

I were talking this last week because she married

the guy who has led a

charmed, blessed life. You know, and

I don't know why. I mean, I— well, I don't know why she married me,

but I also don't know why I've had this charmed, blessed life.

The only thing I— 'cause it's not, you know, it's not because

I deserve it or anything that I did. I know me better

than you. And you ain't going to find

out the rest of it. But

I think it's the heritage that got passed down generation to

generation to generation. And it's just,

wow, that's good. And

it's not just the blessings that have been passed down, the

material blessings, but the spiritual blessings of

peace and joy and contentment

and the spiritual blessings. The spiritual blessings of being introduced to God at

a tender age and being able to spend— well, anyway,

I greatly appreciate it. There was a time in my life when I was

younger when I was ashamed of it. And to be very honest,

I see some heads nodding who had similar

environments to me, but I'm at a place for sure and have been for a

long time where I really appreciate it. I really do. It

wasn't the only way. We kind of thought we were, We didn't

claim to be outright, but we just knew.

Can't be the Baptists. I

mean, you know, those guys after church, they come out and smoke in the

front of the church. They throw those cigarette butts down.

Can't be— well, I'm going to stop right there.

But while I do appreciate it, we were taught several things that

that seemed obvious at the time, I've had

to kind of reevaluate. 'Cause one of the

things we were taught was come to church expecting.

You need to come expecting. You need to come expecting God to do something.

And you need to come to see a move of God. And my

dad used to say, my dad was a great man. I'm proud to be his

son, but not everything he said,

necessarily made sense. He used to

say, "You only can get out what you put in."

No, that's not true. We always get out more than

we put in. And we can't possibly begin

to get out what God gives back to us. But he'd say, you know, come

expecting and come to put it in. He'd say,

"Get in, get out, or get run over." And I was going, "Well,

hallelujah."

See, we weren't just going through the motions like some of these people out there.

Oh no. Oh no. We weren't just going through. We

came to get— to do business with

God. And we did.

And we claimed to

We claimed to reject dead ritual.

Yeah. However, we certainly had our own rituals.

They just weren't dead 'cause they were moving.

We expected, and when we saw it,

we called it the move of the Spirit.

When the music hits the sweet spot,

move of the Spirit comes. Now, I'm certainly

not— I'm very thankful for what the Lord's given us music-wise.

And let me just say this, ever since we brought drums and

guitars and stuff into the church, it's gotten a whole lot better

than when I was growing up. But,

you know, we— You come to that place, oh yeah, this is it. This

is where the Spirit is moving. And for millenniums,

people and God has used music to set an environment.

That's not necessarily the same thing as the move of the Spirit.

But in my day, when I was growing up,

it was pretty close because see, we didn't— the music

didn't necessarily take us there. But if we got in the service and there

were a lot of people crying and there was a lot of shouting going on

and people were falling out on the floor and something, And then some

blessed old soul back in the congregation without

anybody saying a word would break into,

"Give me that old-time religion. Give me that

old-time religion. Give me that old-time

religion. Woo! It's good enough for me." And boy,

it was. You don't get much closer to heaven in a worship service than that.

You really— it was good for Paul and Silas. It's good

enough for me. It was good for my fathers. It's good

enough for me. And I'm not making fun of it.

It was great. It was great. That

was fabulous.

Crying at the altar? Oh my Lord. The Holy

Spirit is here. Michelle and I were talking this week. She was telling

me she went to this church that

there was this lady who was weeping in the service.

And after a while, she wouldn't stop weeping and they

escorted her out. And I said, "Was she wailing?" She

said, "No, she was just crying. She was just

weeping." Wow.

So in your church, If they were weeping, they'd

lead them out of the service. In my church, if they weren't weeping,

they would escort the pastor out of the church.

Wouldn't take long.

Caught up in some form of ecstasy. And if none of those

things happened, we often felt let

down. And too often, if they

didn't happen, we made them happen.

When I first heard— I preached a couple of times when I was a

teenager. I don't recommend it.

But, and it certainly wasn't all that good when

I did it. But I felt pressure.

Felt pressure when I started preaching to make something

happen at the altar call. And boy,

have I heard some altar calls over the years. I've heard

altar calls that were longer than the sermon. You know, and there were

times, and I'm serious, there were times when I

was sitting there, and I'm sure Barbie felt the same way, and

probably Allen and some of the rest of you who grew up in similar

environments. There were times when I went, I've got to go down there and get

somebody. Get saved or this service is never going to end.

Because he's not going to stop till somebody does.

And I felt pressure because if I preached and

nobody came forward and nobody got saved and nobody got healed

and nobody started crying, then I didn't have the anointing.

At least that's what I thought. But I also noticed

that it was often the same people each week doing the

same things with the same results, which was nothing

changed. Nothing changed in their life.

Nothing, nothing. The way they lived their lives didn't

change. So anyway, that's what, that's what I was brought up in. And then a

strange thing happened.

I married a Presbyterian.

And I don't know how much you know about Presbyterians.

We called them the frozen chosen back in the day.

And Michelle told me not to say that because there might be

some Presbyterians here who might be offended by it.

But first of all, Presbyterians tend to have a real

good sense of humor. And second of all, even if they don't, they know I

was predestined to say that before they—

If you say you believe it, you know, you got to put

it into practice. Married a

Presbyterian. She passed away

and I married a Roman Catholic.

I could just see my

ancestors in heaven going, "Oh,

come on." That great cloud of witnesses shaking their head.

Anyway, but I discovered

that walking with the Lord is not necessarily about coming

expecting to see something.

My Presbyterian wife, I had a father, Jack

Haley, and he rocked my world.

He actually believed that infant

baptism was a real thing. I mean, he believed it. Serious.

You know, his daughter got

into the charismatic movement and felt like, you know, I'm a believer

now. I am a believer and I wanna be baptized. "Come

on, you've been baptized. You don't need to be baptized."

He never shouted, "Amen!"

I, one of my favorite moments ever in

church was the last time we went to Glenleven

Presbyterian with Papa and Granny, and

they would sit on the back row. And this particular Sunday,

they had a, a supply preacher. In other

words, he'd never preached there

before, but he was preaching that Sunday. And

we were on the back row, we could see everybody in the church. And there

were a couple of African American ladies who came to the church

and they were visitors. And I knew they were visitors because that's the only time

I'd ever seen an African American in the church.

But The pastor, as he was preaching, he said

something. I don't remember what it was. I mean, it wasn't— he didn't

get it going, but he said something pretty good.

And one of the ladies went, "Amen,

brother."

I mean, that church, you could

feel the silence. And from the back, we could see

every head in the church go,

What just happened? I loved it. It was great.

He has never spoken in tongues. And from where I was

brought up, obviously he could not be filled with the

Spirit. I said

he rocked my world. He

was faithful. In worship. It mattered to him,

even though nothing ever happened

except that week. He was

consistently in the Word. I don't remember him necessarily ever

taking a class or, you know, doing

anything like that, but he was— he just read the Word every

day of his life.

And he was to this day the singular man

I knew who most demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,

faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

How could this be?

How could this be?

And then when

Michelle and I got married and she began to teach me things,

and it would have been— a lot of those things have been things that have

been good things for me to have known quite a bit earlier, but, you know,

know them now, better late than never.

I ain't an old dog. I can learn new tricks.

But one of the things that Michelle has taught

me has been

to truly not be afraid of silence

in worship, because that's often

when God is speaking the loudest to people.

In high school, my best friend was Hank Abbott.

And he had a lot of good friends, and I had a lot of good

friends. I think we were best friends. And I remember

one evening we were driving into Nashville, and I knew Hank and I were

deep friends when I discovered, when it dawned

on me that we were sitting there in silence.

Neither one of us had anything to say, but we didn't feel the least

bit awkward. We felt

comfortable in each other's company.

The move of the Spirit,

sometimes it's observable, but Jesus said

when He was asked, said

the coming of the kingdom is not something that's going to be observed with the

eyes. It's not something that somebody could say, "Here

it is." Because the kingdom of

heaven is within you.

It's where deep calls to deep.

I certainly enjoy a move of the Spirit in the service.

I mean, you know, obviously there's only 3 or 4 of you guys

who've ever been in a service where they broke out singing "Give Me That

Old-Time Religion," or you would know it's sweet.

I enjoy the move of the Spirit in a congregational setting when it's

genuine, when it's genuine.

If you come to worship and nothing ever happens,

that's probably a bad thing. But if you come to worship and

something has to happen, That's

equally not a good thing because the flesh can only

give birth to flesh, not to

spirit. And more importantly is to

realize that our faith is not about practicing

religion. It's about a relationship. It's about a

lifelong relationship with your Creator who has

redeemed you to Himself. That's what it's about.

Corporate worship can help because I

believe it was Don Finto who

described the church service as this is like an ocean-going

vessel. And we're all out there in our little canoes and

our little dinghies and our kayaks, and a little wave comes along and

we tend to get tipped over. But the ocean-going

vessel, is essentially unmoved by it. And it

brings us back to center. It establishes us.

That's why it's important to be in worship. Can you believe in Jesus

and not go to church? Well, absolutely. But why would you not

go?

It's where you get conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Does a lot of

the— see, if I'm just— it's a lot easier for me to

believe in Jesus and not mess with any of you.

Because then it's never tested.

But to believe in Jesus and hang out with Him, you know, the

cross, the cross was a terrible thing,

a massive ordeal, and rightly so. We tend to focus

in on it. But that 24-hour period

really wasn't even 24 hours, was not the hardest part

of Jesus' assignment. The hardest part of Jesus' assignment

was putting up with us.

Really. You can do anything for

18 hours, but for

years putting up with a bunch of knuckleheads. And if we're going to

be conformed to his image, then God's probably going to bring some knuckleheads into

our lives. Probably

going to bring some people who don't understand us and treat us treat

us wrong.

Some come to— oh, and let me, yeah, I'm kind of running out of time,

but I'm gonna finish and I'm gonna do quickly, but you need to

listen fast 'cause this is all good. Some come to

church these days, and I think this is really like a

last 10 or 15-year thing, come to church and say, tell me

how I'm supposed to handle these things that are going on in the world.

Tell me how I'm supposed to handle these wars and how I'm supposed to handle

these politics I'm supposed to handle these tragedies and

this economy? How am I supposed to— tell me how to—

How about this? How about I don't tell you,

but I point you toward the Holy Spirit and let Him tell you

how to handle it?

Because if I tell you, A, there's a

real strong possibility I could be wrong,

And B, you're going to need me to tell you next time too.

But if the Holy Spirit tells you,

that's a whole different thing. Ritual can help

us keep our focus,

but this relationship is more than these things. It is a long,

often slow process.

By which Philippians 1:6 is

Philippians 1:6

accomplished. He who began a good work in you will carry it on

to completion till the day of Christ Jesus.

How long is that? Rest of your life.

And not just during the good times or the bad

times or the challenging times, also

in the, eh, times.

The rest of our lives on this plane. This is a verse that we

often hear and would like quoted: Be still and know that I am

God. I will be exalted among the nations. I

will be exalted in the earth. This doesn't just mean take a break.

It doesn't just mean, well, you've been, you've been doing all this work

and everything. Now it's time to take a rest. And know that I'm

God. No, no, this

is all the time. Be still,

cease striving, a lot of translations say, and

know that I am

God. Trust that he is working.

This is where we understand that he will be.

Regardless of what's going on out there, really regardless of what's going on

here, he will be. And it's

also where we truly come to know him.

It isn't until you spend ordinary

days with someone that you get to know them.

You can have experiences with them. You can You can have

events with them. You can share tragedies with them and share

joys with them, but— and you'll learn about them.

But it's not until you spend day after

day after day after day after

day after day that you really get to know

them, that you really get to know who they are.

Jesus said, this is eternal life,

they may know you, Jesus

Christ, whom you have sent. This is what

makes life worth living.

You guys, come on. Yeah, you come on down here.

I didn't hurt y'all's feelings or anything about that? Okay, good. I'm glad.

Maybe I did hurt Robert's feelings. I don't know.

I don't necessarily expect anybody to come weeping into the altar. You

can if you need to. It doesn't really,

you know, Yeah,

email Kevin.

But we're going to give you an opportunity to come if you need prayer,

because this is that ocean-going vessel. And sometimes you just need

a place, a harbor. So with those who are going to

pray with people, come down and the rest of you stand.

And let's

think about God.

I,

uh, one other thing that Michelle has taught me— I don't want to

embarrass her by talking about her too much, but I grew up

in, uh, in a church situation where

we usually left talking about what

happened at church.

We don't discuss that very much anymore. When we

leave, she wants to talk about

what happened in me. And

that's just something to ponder, something to think about.

Raise your hand. Let me give you a blessing. May the

God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

who sent his Son into the world that we might have life and

have it to the full, life worth living,

through the grace and presence of the Holy Spirit,

may he give you the eyes to see

and to understand what life worth living really

is. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.