Billy Joe Daugherty - Diligence Produces Results

Table of Contents

God Remembers Your Labors of Love

For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.

And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Hebrews 6:10-12

God rewards your effort. He rewards your work. He sees it, and He credits it to your account. He is thankful for the work you have done, and He demonstrates it by the rewards that He gives to those who work and serve Him. He's not unrighteous. He's a righteous God, and when you work and serve Him, He remembers it. He won't forget it. There's a reward that comes from diligently serving God.

The Spirit of God, through the writer of Hebrews, says that as you minister to God's saints, you show love to His name. In other words, you love God by loving those whom He loves.

Some people want to love the Lord, but they don't love or relate to the people who are on the earth; yet, the two are tied together. That's why the first and second commandments are always spoken together. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourself , because the love for God produces love for people. John said we can't say we love God if we don't love our brother.

Verse 11 essentially says, "We urge, admonish and entreat you that you would show the same diligence in your life all the way through. As you started and as you are doing now, show the same diligence all the way through your life until you receive the hope that has been laid up for you."

In Verse 12, we're given a pattern: that you would follow those who through faith and patience have inherited the promises. He says, "Don't be slothful or lazy, but be diligent to follow those who have already gone ahead."

I like the way the writer of Hebrews expresses these verses in the J. B. Phillips Translation of the Bible. It relates more closely to the conversational tones of today.

God is not unfair; he will not lose sight of all that you have done nor of the loving labour which you have shown for his sake in looking after fellow-Christians (as you are still doing).

It is our earnest wish that every one of you should show a similar keenness in fully grasping the hope that is within you, until the end.

We do not want any of you to grow slack, but to follow the example of those who through sheer patient faith came to possess the promises.

Inheriting God's Promises Through Faith and Patience

A lot of people have idols and heros who are not inheriting the promises. We should be sure that those we exalt before our children are people who are inheriting the promises of God. The heros we talk about and identify should be " heros of faith." The greatest people you should look up to aren't those who have sold a million records, won the Super Bowl, or stormed Wall Street, but it should be those who are inheriting the promises of God through faith and patience.

What is patience? It means consistency, steadfastness, endurance, longsuffering, not wavering, not staggering and staying with it. Through faith and patience, they inherited the promises.

A lot of people want to pray three times and receive the manifestation of God's promises. They want instant everything. Too many people have this attitude about inheriting the promises of God.

They want them instantly, but God's Word says we will receive them through faith and patience .

God rewards the labor that you are doing. He won't overlook it, so stay with what you've been doing. Be diligent as you have been all the way through your life. Keep your eyes on Jesus, and if you're going to follow anyone, follow those who through faith and patience are inheriting the promises, not emulating them as people but emulating their faith. Follow Peter, Paul, David or Joshua in their faith walk as they obeyed God.

There were times when Abraham struggled with how his promised child was going to come. We remember Hagar through whom Ishmael was conceived. We remember Abraham saying that his wife was his sister, which was deception. Most of all, what we're to remember about Abraham was that he kept on giving glory to God and through faith and patience, he inherited the promise that God had given him. That's the part we're called to follow.

This word diligence in the Greek is SPOUDE, which means "earnestness, speed, haste, zeal or carefulness." Webster defines diligence as "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; doing what is required to be done with earnestness; applying yourself in a steady exertion."

Many people wonder why the promises of God aren't being realized in their life or why they aren't blessed like other people are. They cannot understand the discrepancy between their life and what they see in the Word of God.

It's not because they don't believe God. It's not because they haven't been baptized in the Holy Spirit. It's not because they don't praise in church. It's not because they don't pray or read the Bible. It's simply diligence that many people lack. They will hit it a lick or two and then slack off. They get fired up and then cool off. Every now and then they get excited spiritually and do the things spiritually that it takes to be a success. But for lack of diligence they go backward.

It's through diligence that we begin to see the continual results that God intends the Gospel to produce in our lives.

Steady in Application to Business

Where people lack diligence in the natural, they often lack diligence in spiritual things. People who aren't diligent to be to work on time, who aren't diligent to fulfill a job or requirement they are given are usually the same way with God.

God tells them to do something. They might do it or they might not. It depends on how they feel, what the weather is like that day , what someone says about it or doesn't say about it. They struggle with why they aren't being blessed more. I'm saying to you, this is an hour for diligence and steady application to the business at hand.

You may be questioning, "What business are you talking about?" I'm talking about the greatest business on earththe Father's great Kingdom business! Jesus said, "...I must be about my Fathers business (Luke 2:49).

God Wants You to Bear Fruit

And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;

And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;

And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8

This indicates that it is possible for a person to have the knowledge of Jesus, yet be barren and unfruitful. People can have the knowledge of God, know about the Lord, and even know about these truths, but Peter says these things must be diligently added to your life.

Verse 9 says, "But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off..." Many people just live in the here and now. They live in a matchbox. They don't perceive eternal things. They live only for the temporal. Peter says the person who doesn't see the addition of these things in his life "...is blind and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins" (Verse 9).

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and your election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall (Verse 10).