Radicle Effect - Sloth and Diligence

If we haven't met, I would love to meet you and go over the finer details of how to spell my last name and its origins.

Yeah, why not?

I'll buy you the coffee, I'll buy you the lunch, the drink, whatever it is.

I'd just love to get to know you.

We are in the last week of a series we've been calling Radical Effect.

You've heard it over and over again if you've been here for more than one week.

The radical is that first sprout of root that comes from a seed that has been planted,

and the effect is the plant that grows from it.

And as Christians, in the Christian faith, we believe because of what Jesus has done,

that there is a new radical effect that is growing in us.

The Holy Spirit is developing it and growing it within us.

And because of that, we can resist the old and embrace the new.

If you happen to have missed any of those weeks, you can find the sermon as just a standalone anywhere that you get your podcast.

You can get that, or if you want to watch the full service, that is on Facebook as well as YouTube.

But today we finish up this series with slothfulness and diligence.

Check out this picture. This is the majestic sloth.

It's cute, isn't it?

I think they're cute. I don't know about you, but I think they're kind of awesome.

Sloths sleep between 15 and 20 hours a day.

I saw a mother look at her child just now.

At any given time, up to 37% of the body weight and mass of a sloth is just the food that is being digested in its system.

Because it can take up to two weeks for them to digest.

Now you think, oh, they move so slowly.

Well, yeah, because they've got to preserve their energy.

It takes forever for them to digest anything that they eat.

While they've got arms that are strong enough for climbing and swinging and hanging,

because of the shape of their back legs, when they are on the ground, they can't actually stand on all fours.

And their max speed is 1.2 miles per hour.

It's even faster than that, I promise.

I do about three miles per hour when I walk.

So when sloths were discovered in the 1600s, you can see why they were named after the deadly sin of slothliness.

It wasn't the other way around.

They were named after the concept of slothfulness.

But I'm not sure that it's actually really fair to the sloth, because there isn't really a problem with a sloth acting like a sloth.

They are exactly as they're meant to be.

It's how they were created or designed or developed or evolved.

This is what a sloth is meant to be.

The problem is when humans act like a sloth.

The obvious joke here is this picture from 2016's Zootopia.

Welcome to the DMV.

My apologies to anybody that works at the DMV.

I understand that it's a low hanging fruit kind of joke, but it gets a laugh every time.

So we'll keep using it.

All jokes aside, the reality is that we are all different.

The point here isn't even really about speed or how fast someone moves or even about someone's physical ability.

The point is that the question of are we diligent in who God has made us to be?

Or is the root of slothfulness still slowly dragging us down?

So with that, let's jump into the scriptures and see what we can learn.

I'm going to be reading from Proverbs 6.

Proverbs is generally speaking around the middle of the Bible.

They're after the Psalms.

If you don't have a Bible of your own, there's blue Bibles on the table.

You're welcome to take one of those home with you or grab one from the bookshelf out in the lobby.

Otherwise, download a Bible app from any of the digital app stores.

And we have a tradition of giving the scriptures our full attention as we read the scriptures during the message.

One of the ways we can do that is by standing with me as I read.

If you don't prefer to stand, please just give the scriptures your full attention.

And I thought since I gave Fire Ant such a bad rap last week,

I would read a passage about ants this week.

Proverbs 6, starting in verse 6.

Go to the ant, you lazy bones.

Consider its ways and be wise.

Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer and gathers its sustenance and harvest.

How long will you lie there, oh lazy bones?

When will you rise up from your sleep?

Little sleep, little slumber, little folding of the hands to rest.

And poverty will come upon you like a robber and want like an armed warrior.

Let us pray.

God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you for the scriptures.

They have persisted throughout the millennia that we still have them to consider and to learn from.

And I pray that whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it would stick,

that it would become a part of the framework of our faith,

that our faith would become stronger as we become more like your son Jesus.

Amen? Amen.

Thanks all, I can't have a seat.

All right, so some of you are aware that today is Advancement Sunday.

That is the day where Treehouse comes to an end,

Shed, the teen ministry, comes to an end in the Sunday morning format.

And we acknowledge the kids that are moving from one area to another will be acknowledging those advancements.

So while this message is for everyone, I do think that it's especially for them.

So the first thing is this.

I want to make sure that you know and that you understand that the Proverbs aren't saying that you should not sleep.

You read it, if you read it, you go, oh, it's telling me if I even fold my hands,

if I get a little extra sleep, that I'm going to be in trouble.

That's not what it means, the Proverbs aren't telling us that we should never rest,

but they are intentionally pointing out that some things in life are time sensitive.

And if laziness takes hold, it will have a negative effect.

If we stay up too late and sleep through work, we're probably going to have an issue keeping that job.

But taking care of our bodies, getting the rest and sleep that we need is not laziness.

I also want to make sure that we understand that slothfulness is about more than just work.

It's about more than just a job.

Slothfulness can find its way into any aspect of our lives.

We become slothful socially when we neglect the relationships around us.

We don't have to be a social butterfly, you don't have to be an extrovert, but relationships are key.

Relationships are important.

And if we neglect them, if we leave them to atrophy, some of them may not be strong enough

to sustain us in the moments that we find that we need them.

We can be slothful physically when we avoid making healthy decisions.

I am notorious for this.

I remember 15 years ago deciding to get life insurance and they do blood work when you get life insurance

because they want to find out just how much should they charge you.

Because they don't know how healthy you are or are not.

One of the worst things that happened was that I had this blood work done for life insurance

and it came back and I had the best numbers that you could possibly imagine.

And it tricked me into thinking, well I've already been eating whatever I want to eat.

And so it must mean that I can just continue on eating whatever I want to eat.

And so I still go long stretches where I am not taking care of my body.

Reality is that every couple years I put on and take off 30 plus pounds.

That is not a healthy way to live.

Then there's our intellects.

We become slothful intellectually when we decide that we've learned enough.

Now it's not necessarily something that any of us say out loud, right?

We don't go around posting on Facebook going, well I'm full up.

I've learned everything I need to know.

But when was the last time you read a book?

When was the last time you read a book that someone else recommended?

Or heard something that you didn't understand and you looked it up?

Or had someone, had something that you believed challenged and left your mind open enough,

long enough to find out why you disagree with the person that has challenged you?

Emotionally we become slothful when we suspend development and avoid processing experiences.

So much of life, especially if you're young, but this is for the adults as well, so much

of life just happens to us guys.

It's just constantly happening to us.

When we do not stop and process any of this life that is happening to us, our emotions,

our emotional ability to relate to life begins to atrophy.

I'm not currently seeing a therapist, but this last year I did 10 sessions with a grief

therapist to process things that happened years ago.

Working on our emotions matters.

When we don't, it affects our ability to interact with those emotions in the moment and with

the emotions of those that are around us.

Of course, all of these, the social, the physical, the intellectual, and the emotional, they

all affect the spiritual.

The truth is that most of us are probably slothful in at least one of these areas.

When we find that out, maybe today is the moment that you're realizing how slothful

you are about any one of these things.

When we find that out, one of the greatest temptations that we have and that I want to

encourage us to avoid is trading in laziness for drivenness.

One of the most natural things to do is trade the idea that I've become slothful or lazy

for the idea that now I must be driven.

Because being driven can be just as unhealthy as laziness because drivenness will trade

atrophy for burnout.

15 years ago, I worked at a church in Georgia that valued drive in its staff above most

other things.

And yes, there is such a thing as unhealthy spiritual drive.

We were having a staff meeting one day when the lead pastor told us that if all of us,

each of us, individually wasn't praying for our church every single day, we didn't belong

on that team.

Some of us don't pray for our children every day, and that's okay.

Now I didn't get up and leave, but the reality was that I was not praying at that church

every single day, and that did not mean that I was unhealthy.

This pastor would say things like, we should be willing to do anything short of sin to

grow the church.

Man, that leaves a lot of gray area, doesn't it?

The reality was that he was driving us to results.

So when we left Georgia and we moved back to Colorado Springs and I was hired at New

Life Church, I had to learn what to do with that drive.

Because New Life Church in Colorado Springs was 20 times the size of the church I was

working at in Georgia.

Imagine how much drive I thought I was going to have to have in order to keep up with that.

I remember meeting with Garvin McCarroll, the senior executive pastor, and of course

I wanted to impress him, right?

And I remember I was sitting at his desk in his office and I remember telling him, I said,

I just want you to know that I'm really working on my drive.

I said this.

I'm really working on developing my drive, how driven I am.

And he said, Greg, he corrected me in the most kind way.

He said, Greg, I want you to learn the difference between being driven and being diligent.

That piece of wisdom in large part has affected the kind of pastor that you have received.

That piece of wisdom is one of the reasons that we as a church have as one of our three

things rest.

That piece of wisdom probably saved me.

Because what I learned is that drive will empty your tank perpetually, continually,

incessantly, demandingly, empty your tank over and over again and no matter how much

you think you are filling it, it will never feel full.

But diligence understands seasons.

It understands stretches.

Drive will sacrifice your health and your relationships for results.

Diligence says that your health and relationships are part of what it means to succeed.

Hear me.

Diligence tells you that your health and your relationships are part of what it means

to succeed.

Because drive will only measure results.

How many miles have you gone?

But diligence will focus on faithfulness.

How consistent is your heart?

This past week I had a lovely moment where I was sitting on the couch and we were watching

a television show that mentioned the dad working and one of my kids just looked at me and said,

dad I'm so glad you have the kind of job that lets you be at home.

But the reality is that I have the kind of job that a lot of pastors use as a reason

to not be home.

Because they are driven.

Whatever job that you as a young person find yourself growing up and taking on, whatever

vocation, whatever calling you take on, it does not matter what it is, there will be

people in that field that will use it as an excuse to not be connected with other human

beings.

To not be connected to God, to not be connected with a community, with their own family.

And you have to decide now.

When you're 10, when you're 12, when you're 15, when you're 18, that no matter what you

do with this life, that your job will not become your life.

Because drive will always, always need more from you.

Drive will never be satisfied with the next promotion.

Drive will never be satisfied with your raise.

Drive will never be satisfied with the number of hours that you worked.

But diligence will understand that there is daily bread.

And that the Lord is the one that will supply all of your needs all along the way.

And so while this is for everybody, it's especially for the young.

Floth will not serve you, but neither will drive.

Diligence and faithfulness are key to a healthy life.

So as I close, I'll just tell you one last thing.

Last month I was meeting with a young man that's going through college and he's talking

about greatness.

And I just told him, I said, if there is one idea, if there's one lie that I could snatch

from the minds of the young, it's that you have to be great.

I told him, and I'm telling you, God is not calling you to greatness.

This world does not need more greatness.

This world needs more beauty.

Because God did not create you to be great.

God created you already good.

God created you beautiful.

And if you can look at each day of your life, each class, each interaction, each teacher,

each day at work, each field trip, each whatever it is you fill in the blank and replace that

idea in your head that I need to make this as great as possible.

And just think that you are already beautiful because of who God created you to be.

And that all you need to do is add a little bit of your beauty to whatever you have stepped

into.

Because you will never fully reach the kind of greatness that this world tells you that

you need to reach.

But you are already beautiful.

And that beauty goes with you everywhere that you go.

It is already with you.

And man, I don't know.

At my age, I'm not very old, 46.

But I don't spend much time looking back going, I wish I'd been greater.

I look back and I remember the moments of beauty.

Because that moment in the office with Garvin McKerrow was not a moment of greatness.

It was a moment of beauty.

He was offering me an out, reminding me that even the Lord is working with diligence in

my heart.

There is nothing more beautiful than the work that the Lord is doing in each of you.

Amen?

Amen.

Let's turn to the table.