Sermon Tone Analysis

Advent Series - The Gift Exchange

Today: Exchanging apathy for love

According to Dictionary.com,

apathy is the absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement; a lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

It can happen at work when the tasks you do becomes more important than the vision for the company.

We get lost in the mundane.

It can happen in marriages and in relationships, where we come to the place where we get stuck into a routine and we somehow quit learning about ourselves and our partners.

It can even happen in church, where good people stop experiencing God because they’ve heard it all before and sang the same song for 50 years and nothing new happens.

I came across an 2020 blog article from a church in Florida called Grace church that listed 5 things that can cause apathy in our Christian faith.

Let me share them with you.

Familiarity

There’s a term in the art and film industry called “visual lethargy” to describe the process of becoming desensitized to the same sight.

You’ve probably experienced it.

Have you ever gone somewhere and were in awe of the view at first, but the longer you are there, the less you even notice it?

In the summer, our family went to Manhattan and one night, my daughter Rebekah and I went down and took the Staten Island Ferry.

The ferry which is free and only takes about 30 minutes one way, takes your right past the Statue of Liberty.

And, being tourists, Bekah and I are in awe of it and later of the Manhattan skyline at night.

But there are a bunch of people just inside ferry, on their phones or in a book, because they probably take the ferry twice a day every day.

They are apathetic to the view because they are so familiar with it.

So it goes with the things of God.

The grace that once left us breathless can feel humdrum over time.

Scripture that brought us to our knees sounds hollow and rote.

When this happens—when the sacred becomes common - we need to do something to rekindle the fire of faith in our lives.

Boredom

Christian teacher and author Jon Bloom defines boredom not as the opposite of busyness, but as the opposite of interest.

Everyone feels disinterested from time to time, but pervasive disinterest is often a sign of spiritual apathy.

G.K. Chesterton said, “There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person.”

If you can’t muster up any interest in what’s happening during the worship service, or when you do the spiritual disciplines like pray or read the bible, or in anything of God, it’s worth getting curious about your boredom.

Bloom writes, “Listen carefully to your boredom.

It’s telling you something important.

It’s a hunger for happiness.

Don’t just feed it the junk food of easy entertainment and stimulation or the malnourishing diet of selfish pursuits.

If you heed boredom’s warning, it will show you your broken joy cisterns.

If you accept its invitation, it will lead you to where the true fountains of joy are found.”

Mediocrity

Another indicator of spiritual apathy is the acceptance of mediocrity.

Now, ordinariness and mediocrity are not the same thing.

Living an ordinary life with extraordinary faithfulness is an inspiring hallmark of Christianity.

Mediocrity is when you put in the bare minimum effort to nurture and grow your faith, so you can check it off your list.

Quickly reading a passage of scripture to get through it, instead of sitting with it and investigating how it might speak into your life.

Going to church, but not getting involved in it’s community or serving in it’s ministries.

Only praying when it’s suppertime.

Christian blogger Neal Samudre writes, “Mediocrity is the sum of all the times we choose to take the easy path with our faith.”

Mediocrity is both a result of apathy and something that fuels it.

Disconnection

With the dawn of the digital age, disconnection is a real danger for all of us.

Author Carey Nieuwhof writes, “We live in a world where you can have five hundred friends and still feel isolated and abandoned.

Solitude is a gift from God. Isolation is not—it’s a tool of the Enemy.

As a culture, the more connected we’ve become, the more isolated we’ve grown.

This is our strange twenty-first-century paradox: we’re connected to more people than ever before and we’ve never felt more alone.”

And the trouble with disconnection isn’t merely social or emotional, but spiritual.

We were designed by God to live and thrive in community—with accountability, encouragement, and genuine relationships and so when we don’t have those things, our apathy will feed off our isolation.

Passivity

Passivity is simply being passive - it’s just not doing anything.

Have you ever had a nap and then woke up feeling less energetic than before?

That’s just physics.

A body at rest wants to remain at rest.

And that happens in our faith.

We get into the habit of not doing anything with our faith and it becomes a passive part of us.

But our faith is meant to be lived out loud.

We are meant to exercise our faith with loving service to others and by putting in an effort.

Start by doing just one thing.

Join a small group, start serving in a ministry, take your pastor for coffee.

Say yes to that thing you’ve put off but know you should do, or say no to that thing you really shouldn’t do.

Just do something.

Familiarity, Boredom, Mediocrity, Disconnection, Passivity.

So, let’s take a moment and reflect on those.

Do any of them resonate with you?

Are you experiencing a sense of spiritual apathy in your life lately?

If so, then I want to encourage you to participate in a gift exchange with Jesus.

Give him your apathy and receive from him the gift of love.

Love is the great motivator for life change and in Jesus, we have the greatest expression of love.

Knowing the depth and breadth of God’s love for you, can empower you to shake off your apathy and not only live in God’s love, but to exude God’s love to others.

Now, our passage today, doesn’t mention the word love at all but love permeates everything in it and so as we go through the first seven verses of chapter 2 in Luke’s gospel, my hope is that you will see with me three ways that God’s love is expressed.

May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of the word and reveal to us his life-changing love.

The first thing that God shows us about love is that sometimes, love hides in the ordinary.

Sometimes, love hides in the ordinary

When you think of the great scenes from movies where one character declared their love for another, it’s always the most dramatic thing in the world.

Scenes like in the Notebook where Rachel McAdams jumps into Ryan Gosling’s arms in the rain - or in Pretty Woman when Richard Gere climbs the outside fire escape to a smiling Julia Roberts - or when Mr. Lunt sings passionately to his cheeseburger - these scenes make our hearts soar.

But the problem is that they perpetuate the myth that love is found in dramatic displays of affection.

When Abby and I were dating at Bible college, for a valentines surprise, I booked a classroom at our school, set up a table with chairs, bought candles and candlestick holders, had 2 friends dress up like waiters and get our food from the dining room and serve us, while I had two other friends, who were both brilliant pianists play classical music live for us while we ate.

I know, boss move, right?

Putting in a big effort is definitely a way to show someone you love them.

But I have learned in the years since then that the deeper love is found in the ordinary.

When my wife cooks dinner for me, when we go for coffee somewhere, when I take her car to get the oiled changed, or when we wander Costco together.

The deepest form of love is found in the small ways of faithful service to and presence with another.

Which is what is happening here in Luke chapter 2. If we are honest, these seven verses are boring and mundane.

They start off with a statement that the government wants information from everyone.

Then it tells us that this is the first census when Quirinius is governor.

That’s just the way ancient writers would tell the date before the calendar is widespread in use.

Now, to do this census, everyone has to go to the town their family is traditionally from to register.

Which is a very government thing to do: let’s make everyone travel to fill out some paperwork.

Then it says that Joseph took Mary who was pregnant.

And while there, she gave birth and then swaddled Jesus and put him in a manger, because all the hotels were full.

This is not thrilling storytelling to say the least.

It’s very mundane.

But in his ordinary life moment, the love of God is made manifest as Jesus is born.

In this dull narrative lies the greatest act of love in all the cosmos.

God gave his only son to humanity, so that by his sinless life and atoning death, he might redeem us from the penalty and the power of sin.

In Jesus, the love of God has skin and bones and will one day walk among us and teach us about love.