Thinking Faithfully About AI: Speed - Psalm 37 Sermon
Thinking Faithfully About AI: Speed
Scripture: Psalm 37:1–11
Series: Thinking Faithfully About AI
Preacher: Rev. Russell B. Smith
Date: September 13, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Theme verses: Psalm 37:3–7
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The Idolatry of Speed
We continue through Thinking Faithfully About AI, and this week we are talking about speed. This is so interesting to me, because just this week you may have seen the news stories about how the leaders of the big AI corporations are saying, “We need to slow down.” That is astonishing news. It will be really interesting to see if they actually mean it.
You see, one of the things that has been a part of Silicon Valley culture is speed. Speed, I suggest to you, is an idolatry of Silicon Valley culture. That idolatry is perhaps best exemplified Mark Zuckerberg’s much quoted dictum: “Move fast and break things.” That is the culture of Facebook, now Meta. We move fast, we break things. It comes out of this concept called creative destruction: we destroy things, and then we are going to rebuild and build things better, faster, and stronger than they ever were before.
The idea is that you have got to be the first. You have got to be first to market. You have got to be out there ahead of your competitors, because if you do not get there first, you lose. So: move fast and break things.
Another angle on this is an ethos that has been simmering in Silicon Valley called 996. It means working from nine in the morning until nine at night, six days a week. Twelve hours a day, six days a week. The standard workweek is seventy-two hours, and if you are not doing that, you are falling behind.
This has become so much a part of the Silicon Valley ethos that there are startup firms that encourage people to move into what they call hacker houses. In an October 20, 2025 Washington Post article, Danielle Abril profiles this whole ethos: you have got to clock all these hours because you have got to be faster to market. She tells the story of an AI startup called Browser Use. Magnus Mueller, one of its founders, lives in a hacker house with five coworkers. He may start working at seven in the morning and not go to sleep until midnight or one. He wants his coworkers there so that, at any time of the day or night, someone can say, “Hey, let’s work on this,” and they can seamlessly do all this nonstop work.
That article also quotes Iñaki Berenguer of the venture capital firm LifeX Ventures: “Whoever builds first in AI will capture the market… so you better run faster than everyone else.” That is a part of the ethos: You have to run faster. You have to work more. You have to put in the hours. Eighty hours a week? No problem. We must be faster.
I suggest to you that what we have here is an idolatry of speed. Now, let me be clear: speed itself is not the problem. There are times when speed is called for. When grandma is having a cardiac event, you want the ambulance to be speedy in getting there, right? When there is a crisis, you want the first responders to be speedy in getting there. In an actual race, in a marathon, you want to be as speedy as possible, pacing yourself for maximum speed. There are times when it is called for to kick it in and get things done fast.
Speed is not the problem. It is the idolatry of speed—the relentless pursuit of speed at all costs. This need for speed that is born out of fear that somebody else is going to get the prize before you do. It is this idolatry of speed for which we will sacrifice our health, sacrifice our relationships and families, sacrifice our integrity, sacrifice anything else so that we can achieve that speed. That is where things go horribly, horribly off the rails.
The Wisdom of Do Not Fret
That is why the ancient wisdom of the Psalms is so helpful. Psalm 37 gives us the wisdom of “do not fret.” This is a wisdom psalm. We spent time last month talking about the Psalms teaching us how to pray and how to bring our hearts to the Lord, which is wonderful. But this psalm reads an awful lot like Proverbs. It gives us proverbial wisdom in a song.
This is part of the genius of David and the genius of ancient Israel—that they did not just record their theology and statutes; they sang their theology. They sang their wisdom. Sometimes singing theology helps it sink into our hearts. I suggest that a faith that cannot be sung is an impoverished faith. And rooted in this song of wisdom is the admonition “do not fret.”
“Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong, for like the grass they will soon wither; like green plants they will soon die away.” Did you notice as the passage was being read that “do not fret” kept coming up? You heard it three times. This truth is a major refrain in this opening movement of the psalm: Do not fret.
Let us pause on that for a moment, because I think fretting becomes a root of the idolatry of speed. Remember that quote from earlier: you had better get to market first. You are fretting that your competitors are going to beat you, and then you are going to be nothing. There is the first-mover advantage. Whoever gets there first is going to win, and there is this sense of urgency because you do not want to come in second in the race to get AI done.
None of us are Silicon Valley executives, so what might our fretting be? I suggest that sometimes fretting comes out of a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset. Carol Dweck is the psychologist who talks about this in her book Mindset. The idea of the fixed mindset is that my identity is rooted in my characteristics. I am a smart person. I am a capable person. I am a creative person. I am charismatic or talented. And then I have to keep proving it over and over again.
Every situation threatens my identity because this is who I am; it is fixed. I have always got to be proving it. So the fretting, the competitiveness, and the urgency in many of our lives may come from this: I have got to prove it. I have got to prove that I am smarter, better, or faster than all these other people.
The growth mindset says, “My identity is not at stake.” I am a creature. I am constantly growing, changing, and being shaped. I am a creature in an infinite universe, so I can keep growing, learning new things, and being formed. The joy is in the journey—the learning, the growth, the discovery, and seeing what fun things I can do. Everything becomes an opportunity to learn, grow, and experience.
In the Christian setting, the growth mindset is founded on the idea that the Spirit is growing us. This is the grace of Christ helping us grow and develop. A fixed mindset focuses on winning at all costs. The growth mindset focuses on each event as an opportunity to grow and develop, whether you win or lose. If you are always focused on winning, you always have to prove yourself. But if you are resting in relationship with the living God, then you have all kinds of room to explore, to play, to grow, and to rest. If you come in second best, that is okay. You have experienced something powerful from God.
That gets into this concept of “do not fret.” You do not always have to pursue speed at all costs because you might get beat. And if we are unplugging from the idolatry of speed, one of the best ways to do that is to practice the rhythms of rest.
The Rhythms of Rest
The key verse for our purposes today—the verse that, if you miss anything else, I want you to get into your head—is this: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.” Remember Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God.” In Psalm 46, the stillness is in the context of all the anxiety, churn, and fear of everything going on. Here it is in the context of other people being out in front of you: “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.”
Now, I am not saying that the people in Silicon Valley are evil or that their schemes are necessarily wicked. I am saying that pursuing speed at all costs is an idolatry, and idolatry puts us in a place where things can go horribly wrong. But we do not need to fret over them. We do not have to compete with them. Be still before the Lord. Stillness becomes a balm, a way of healing our tendency to fret, our craving to prove ourselves, and our frantic need to compete against others.
That sense of stillness leads us into the Christian rhythms of abiding. If you have been with us for a while, you have heard me talk about these rhythms before. There is the daily rhythm: taking time every day to unplug from whatever you are doing and plug in to the presence of the Lord through Scripture, prayer, quiet reflection, and simply being still and knowing that God is with you. Jesus teaches this daily rhythm. It unplugs us from relentless speed and relentless productivity so that we can connect to the living God.
Then there is the weekly rhythm, the weekly Sabbath. You are practicing it right now. We are unplugging from all the other stuff out there and gathering as the body of Christ. We are plugging in to connect with God through song, fellowship, and reflection on Scripture so that we can hear from the Lord and be filled and strengthened.
My hope is that the Sabbath is one day in seven—not simply an hour of worship, but a whole day dedicated to rest, relationships, and restorative practices. A whole day of not racing to catch up, not being productive, but resting, relating, and being restored. That can mean walking in the garden. I suspect that, come one o’clock, a bunch of you are going to be gathered around televisions watching a football game or two. I hope you are doing that in fellowship with other folks, connecting and enjoying time together. One day in seven, we unplug from relentless productivity.
There are also the occasional rhythms of retreat. We get out of our normal context and into a different context where we can unplug and hear from the Lord in a fresh, new way. It is not that God speaks more clearly in one particular place. God is everywhere. But we get out of our context so that we can attune ourselves to hear from the Lord.
That is part of why we offer mission trips. We get people out of Cincinnati and go to Jonesville, Virginia, to work on homes, be on the side of a mountain, and hear from the Lord in a fresh way. In just a few weeks, a small group from our church is going on pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey to walk in the footsteps of Saint Paul. We get out of our context and go someplace else to experience the power, peace, and presence of God in a special way, so that when we come back, we can experience the Lord more richly here. It might also mean going on a personal retreat at a retreat center.
These are the rhythms of grace: daily time with the Lord, a weekly Sabbath, and occasional retreats. When we practice them, we are being still before the Lord. When we practice them, we slay the idolatry of speed.
It is interesting that there are even voices in Silicon Valley who have keyed into the idea that the 996 ethos is a little much. That same Washington Post article quotes the alliteratively named Deedy Das, a partner at Menlo Ventures: “I think overwhelmingly the founders who choose to glamorize this are younger …. They don’t have the maturity to understand that experienced people can work 40 to 50 hours a week and get a lot more done than in an 80-hour week.”
He is not necessarily talking about Christian rhythms of resting and abiding, but he is on to something. I suggest to you that, if you practice the rhythms of abiding and resting—being still and knowing that God is God—you can experience the paradox that by working less, you actually get more done. By investing in hearing from the Lord, investing in relationships, and investing in restoration, the Lord will make you more fruitful than you ever imagined. Not necessarily more productive in the sense of output, but more fruitful than you ever imagined.
The Practices of Abiding
The psalm gives us a little more insight into what happens when we practice these rhythms: “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” That is a fascinating little bit that is easy to go galloping over.
As you take your daily time, as you take a weekly Sabbath, and as you go on retreat, these are the mindsets I am encouraging you to hunger and thirst for. Trust in the Lord. When you are in your daily prayer time, seeking connection with God, say, “Okay, God, you are here. I am entrusting myself to you.” Trust that God hears when you call out.
Then, trust in the Lord and do good. In those daily, weekly, and occasional rhythms, we seek the guidance and counsel of the Lord. How are you going to do good? The Lord is going to teach you. The Lord is going to show you your next step. What should I do next? How then should I live, Lord? We unplug so that we can learn to hear that still, small voice saying, “This is your next step of faith.” We are not always relying on our own cleverness or ingenuity. We are being still and listening.
When it comes from hearing from the Lord, some people have dramatic experiences in prayer, worship, or retreat. They hear clearly from the Lord. That has happened only a few times in my life. Most of the time, it is nowhere near so dramatic. Most of the time, it is a gentle tap on the shoulder, a gentle nudge: “Why don’t you try doing this?”
And most of the time, I am like, “Lord, is that you, or is that my weirdness? I do not know if I am actually hearing you or not.” But I get the nudge: just give it a try. If it is not something obviously bad or super risky, what could be the harm in following that gentle nudge? Let us make that phone call. Let us take that small action. Nine times out of ten, there is fruitfulness. It may be very small fruitfulness. Sometimes nothing happens, and I do not know what is going on. But nine times out of ten, the Lord has been leading me to do good in a very, very small way, and fruit comes from it.
These are the things that happen when we abide with the Lord: we learn to trust, to listen, and to do good. But I love the next part: “Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord.” Dwelling, enjoying, taking delight. God is well pleased for you simply to savor. God created the cosmos good.
It is okay to sit and savor the meal in front of you. It is God’s design for you to unplug and enjoy sweet conversation with one another, to unplug and have fun, to dwell in the land and just enjoy. You do not have to be always on. You do not always have to be rushing and speeding.
It is great to walk through some of the wonderful parks of Hamilton County and experience the goodness, the glory, and the grandeur all around us. It is wonderful to walk through your neighborhood and spend time talking with that neighbor of yours who is a little quirky but really, really interesting. It is okay to linger a little longer on the coffee break at work, getting to know your coworker a little better, and ask, “Hey, how are the kids doing? Brag about your kids to me for a few minutes.” It is wonderful to take time and enjoy a magnificent bluegrass concert or go to a show, because it is okay to enjoy. It is good to savor.
Whatever those good things are—music, food, fellowship, sports, art—this is goodness from the Lord. Thanks be to God. Dwelling and enjoying are a part of abiding with the Lord. When you do that, you are slaying the idolatry of speed.
Then there is this last bit: “And he will give you the desires of your heart.” That is fascinating. “Well, I want a new car. That is really the desire of my heart, and I have not gotten a new car. In fact, Lord, I want an SUV with four-wheel drive. Where is it?” No, that is not what the psalm is saying.
When you take delight in the Lord, when you practice these rhythms of abiding and resting and opening yourself to the Lord, the Lord responds by shaping you. The Lord changes your desires. We become reshaped and reformed. The Lord gives us an appetite for his goodness. So God gives us the true desires of our hearts because God renews our hearts and transforms our minds. It becomes not the things we are craving, but the things that truly satisfy.
Commit Your Work to the Lord
The psalm continues: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will do this.” In these rhythms of rest and abiding, that is how you commit the other six days of your week. That is how you commit your work to the Lord. That is how you unplug from the fixed mindset and live into the growth mindset.
My work does not define me, but I am going to commit my work to the Lord so that I may grow and learn. “Lord, thy will be done. This is what I have to offer you. I offer my job to you—whether I am a physician, a banker, in sales, or in security. I commit my way to you. Be with me and guide me all through the week.”
We do not have to fret about the results. And believe me, I am the king of fretting. I need to hear this as much as everybody else. I need this in my life, because if it is not in the Lord’s hands and it is all on me, I am going to be a quivering puddle of Jell-O every day. So I commit it to the Lord: “The results are in your hands.”
Look at the promise: “He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.” God will transform you into salt and light all through the week. That is fruitfulness, and that is something much better than winning at the end.
The picture we get here is that the ends do not justify the means. If we make an idolatry out of speed, productivity, or accomplishment—if that is our end—then we very easily fall into the trap of “by any means necessary.” Speed by any means necessary means you have made an idol out of speed.
Rather, when our end is transformed into a relationship with Christ, that end determines what means we will use. Speed is not bad. Productivity is not bad, as long as Christ is our end, our main goal. The psalm continues, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.” Hear that again: do not fret. The ends do not justify the means. Make relationship with the Lord your end, and that relationship transforms your means.
“For those who are evil will be destroyed, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land.” Put your hope in the Lord. You can put your hope in all kinds of victories and successes, but after a while, they are only ephemeral. Every victory, every success is only ephemeral. What lasts forever? Relationship with the Lord.
Strength Submitted to Wisdom
Our passage ends with something that should sound very familiar: “The meek will inherit the land and enjoy peace and prosperity.” The meek will inherit the earth. I think a great teacher said that once, did he not? Jesus, when teaching the beatitudes in the sermon on the mount, pulls straight from the Old Testament here.
Meekness is not weakness. Meekness is not rolling over. Meekness is not refusing to compete at all. It is not abandoning speed and productivity. It is simply not allowing speed and productivity to become your idols. Meekness is strength submitted to wisdom. In a culture of speed, it is speed submitted to wisdom. It is wisely paced progress, because we practice the rhythms, we listen to the Lord, and the Lord helps us pace our progress.
The meek do not need to grasp or push in order to prove themselves. They trust that whatever God gives them is a gift to be received rather than something to be seized as a prize at the end. They can give themselves fully to their work. They can receive correction. They can endure setbacks and keep learning and growing, because the work is God’s work. The outcome does not define their identity. Their identity is defined by resting in the Lord.
The joy is not in winning or attaining. The joy is in the faithful participation—the doing, the growing, the becoming, the experiencing of God now in whatever our efforts are. “This is what the Lord has for me. I am just going to do it,” committing both my work and my enjoyment to the Lord.
That, I believe, is the biblical picture of how our posture should be toward speed. We do not make an idol of it. We do not have to let Silicon Valley’s idolatry of speed set the pace for our lives. We submit speed to our relationship with the living God.
An Invitation to Reflection
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Listen for the gentle nudge that may be showing you your next step of faith. Consider where the Lord is inviting you to stop fretting, to practice a rhythm of rest and abiding, and to commit both your work and its results into God’s hands.
Questions to Consider
Where am I hurrying because I’m afraid of falling behind?
What would I do differently if I believed I did not have to grasp for the future God has promised?
What rhythm of abiding or rest would help me live at a wiser pace this week?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
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