Overcoming Apathy

Last week we started a new series called “Overcomer.” This isn’t a series that taps into something new and exciting that you have never heard before. It isn’t going to change the way you look at your relationship with God for the rest of your life, but the reason I love this series is because, on a fundamental level, it is one of the most important messages in the bible that I need to hear on a consistent basis. If there is one phrase that I need to hear every day it is, “You are an overcomer!” Not because of anything I did or could ever do, but because He did it. Why? Because He wanted to. God makes us overcomers through Christ.

In preparing for each week I have found myself getting absorbed into the notes and the study of each subject. It has been taking me hours to start writing notes on what to talk about because of the amount of work God is doing in my own heart in this series. The study itself is very interesting, but the majority of my distraction is, “WOW! I really need to implement this into my life right away! I didn’t even realize this was an issue in my life.” Have you ever walked around your house in total darkness trying to find the light switch? Then you turned on the light, but you weren’t aware that someone had moved some stuff around and now that the light is on and you see it you’re thinking, “Wow, what happened in here? I’m glad I didn’t step on that or trip over that!”

For me, it has been kind of like that. A few years ago I was walking to the bedroom in the dark. If Amy goes to bed before me, I usually avoid turning lights on so I don’t wake her. I grew up in this house and not much has changed, so it’s not usually a problem. However, on this particular night I was unaware that she had closed the bedroom door. BOOM! I ran square into it and a regular walking pace. That is probably a more accurate analogy for what this series means for me.

I love the way the New Living Translation phrases Paul’s declaration of being overcomers in Romans 8:37. It says, “OVERWHELMING VICTORY is ours through Christ, who loved us.” Overwhelming victory! That’s inspiring. I need this reminder a lot. When my alarm goes off early in the morning I don’t feel very victorious. Zane once told me that getting older is a lot like becoming a different car. Being young is more like being a sports car. You wake up and you are ready to go, but the older you get the more you become like an old Buick and have to sit on the edge of the bed and warm up for a while. I don’t always feel victorious when my alarm goes off. When I realize I am running late to be somewhere I don’t feel victorious. When I can’t avoid sweets I don’t feel victorious.

Online there are a select few people I follow on a somewhat regular basis. Mostly for something to listen to while I ride my bike, but I go through spells where I will watch their videos when I get some free time in the evenings. The other day, one of them announced that they had been going through a divorce and had decided not to keep it a secret anymore. That is very sad news! My heart broke for him and his family, especially since there is a lot of Jerry Springer type drama going on around the whole ordeal.

After he explained all of it he moved on to other topics. I had gotten distracted by the other things he talked about that day and kind of forgot about it. Later, I remembered while I was talking to Amy about something else, “Oh, so and so is in the middle of a divorce!” Then the conversation went back to the original topic. A few days later I came across a video about the drama surrounding them and it was like, “Oh yeah. How sad. What is going on with the drama now?” Distracted again.

Quite some time later it occured to me that I had learned about this divorce and quickly forgot about it. Then, every time I remembered, I was constantly distracted by something else. I had known about it for days, yet up to that moment I had not one time prayed for him, his wife, or his kids. As I replay the timeline in my head, not only did I not pray for any of them, but, by all appearances, I cared more about all of the other stuff going on than the demise of their relationship or the difficulty that the kids were probably facing.

What on earth is wrong with me? I don’t know their whole story, but to some extent I’ve been there before. I am familiar with the dark mental and emotional hole you are forced to exist in during a divorce. Yet when a fellow Christ follower is going through the same thing I quickly move on and forget about it. Why? How?

Today we are talking about Overcoming Apathy. Some people say that because of social media, many people are now so self absorbed with their public presence online that they have become morally apathetic. Some even call this generation the “apathetic generation.” Whatever the reason might be, they have a lack of concern, a lack of interest, or a lack of passion. It’s not a big deal, I don’t really even care a whole lot anyway. It’s not worth the effort. I don’t really want to get involved. Apathy.

Jesus told a similar parable in chapter 10 of Luke. One day a religious expert decided to test Jesus. He asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life. This guy is essentially asking, “Where is the bar? What is the minimum it takes?” Jesus turns his question back on him and asks him how he interprets the law. They man says, “Love the LORD with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus is like, “Gold star! You got it!”

This guy is looking for that low bar, though. He is doing the same thing I did when I was fifteen and was about to take my driving test. When you are in school and about to take a test, what is the first question everyone asks? “What grade do I have to get to pass the test? How many questions can I get wrong? What is the minimum I have to do?” That’s what he is doing, “Jesus, what is the minimum? Who is my neighbor? Do I have to love this guy? Is there a number? Five people? Ten? Everyone?”

Then Jesus tells the parable. He said there was a Jewish man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. While traveling, he was attacked and left for dead, naked in a ditch. If you were walking by, he wouldn’t have just looked like he was sleeping off a rough night at the bar. This dude would have been bruised, bloody, and barely alive. “Jesus, who am I supposed to love?” “Well, there is this naked and beat up guy lying in a ditch.” Verse 30…

Luke 10:31 NLT

31 “By chance a priest came along. But when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.

This guy is in a bad way. The priest wanted nothing to do with him. He starts pretending the guy isn’t there. He starts thumbing through his papers, looking at his phone, looking at the clouds, “That one is a lion, that looks like a tree, OH! it’s a snail attacking a squirrel! Ha! I love clouds.” Then a Levite walks by…

Luke 10:32 NLT

32 A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.

Maybe this guy’s eye sight wasn’t very good. I see him walk up squinting, but as he gets close enough to recognize what is going on he scurries over to the other side of the road. It’s been a while since I’ve read this parable, but in all honesty I see a lot of myself in this story. Not just with the divorce thing I mentioned earlier, but over the last year I have notice a bunch of people walking down highways. Up until the last year I would never see people walking some of the roads around here, but now I almost see someone every week.

I used to stop and at least check on people, but sadly, now I find myself looking at the other side of the road. Or telling myself, “Oh, I don’t have time. There isn’t room in the truck anyway. It could be dangerous. I’m busy anyway. It’s not my problem. It’s not worth the effort.” What a powerful picture of apathy. Right in the middle of Jesus’ story about the greatest commandment. If you’ve ever wrestled with apathy, this story will poke a hole in your heart quick.

Why is it that sometimes I act like these two guys? Why don’t I care like Jesus calls me to care? Why do I let apathy win?

In a few minutes we will look at a couple of things we can do to overcome apathy, but first I want to explore that question. Why is apathy a struggle? You may not struggle with apathy at all, but don’t become apathetic about the subject. You may be close to someone who does, and this could help you understand what they might be going through.

On the other hand, you may have your own list of apathy instigators already. Don’t be afraid of them. Write them down and realize that we are overcomers through Christ, and in Him we have overwhelming victory! This list will not and cannot stand between you and God! Know your enemy and know that you are an overcomer. So, why don’t we care like Jesus calls us to care? Here are three reasons, and they are probably the biggest three in my life…

WHY DON’T WE CARE LIKE JESUS CALLS US TO CARE?

THE VOLUME OF INFORMATION IS OVERWHELMING.

Say you are curious about what is going on around the world, so you turn on the news or go to your favorite news site online. Within five minutes you learn that we are on the brink of world war three, the economic crisis is shutting down some of your favorite stores, the dollar is about to crash, banks are going into default, someone has been stealing credit card numbers from your local restaraunt, foods you eat on a regular basis are likely killing you, and a man in Ohio saw Jesus’ face in his french toast.

Sometimes you just don’t have the capacity to care. You try, but there are just too many things to care about. It gets overwhelming, and in a short amount of time you are simply done. We are constantly exposed to important, life changing stories and after a while they just become the next tragedy in a long list of tragedies. Just another bombing, just another tornado, just another crisis. It’s just to difficult to care. The volume of information is overwhelming. Second…

WHY DON’T WE CARE LIKE JESUS CALLS US TO CARE?

WE FEEL HELPLESS TO MAKE A CHANGE.

It’s hard to care about something that you can’t do much about. You probably really do care and want to do something, but you feel helpless. What can I do, I am just one person? I don’t have enough money to give, I don’t have the time to go, I don’t even know where to begin. How can I make a difference? I am just trying to survive myself. I’ve got all these problems that I am focused on, like paying bills, raising kids, and fixing the roof.

Why don’t I care? Because it’s too overwhelming. Second, because I feel helpless to make a change. Third…

WHY DON’T WE CARE LIKE JESUS CALLS US TO CARE?

WE ARE BLESSED AND CURSED WITH COMFORT.

Have you ever just paused and thought about how amazing life is right now, where we live? Sure, people are trying to take away our rights, but at the moment we still have them. You can wake up in the morning and pave your own way to the life you want. No other country in the world allows their citizens to do that.

In addition to that, you can get in your car, drive several miles in just a few minutes, pull up to a window, tell someone what you are craving, and in a matter of minutes you could have a big, juicy cheeseburger and milkshake. Without having to walk, slaughter a cow, or make the ice cream! Don’t feel like getting out of the house? Many food places even deliver or have access to something like door dash. So all you have to do is pull out your phone, tap a few buttons, and wait for your pizza to knock on your door.

It doesn’t even have to be food. You can avoid wondering around stores for hours looking for a specific item and just order it online and it will be shipped to your house. If you have a device like Amazon Alexa, you can just say, “Alexa… Order my printer ink.” There is no waiting for TV shows, you can just binge watch your favorite show online whenever you want.

It’s a blessing and a curse. What happens when we loose one of these amazing peices of comfort? You are watching TV and then the picture gets fuzzy and the buffering wheel pops up. You want to see someone get frustrated? Find someone with wireless internet and go to their house on a stormy night. Especially if it isn’t a school night. We will be griping, “AH! What is going on with the internet? Message them on Facebook, let them know it is terrible!”

Or you are stuck in a drivethru line, “What is going on up there? What did the guy order, a steak from India? This line is so slow, Chick-fil-a is so much faster!” Comfort is a blessing, but it’s also a curse. Life becomes about me. The more comfortable life becomes, the more life becomes about me.

So how do we overcome Apathy? How do I go from the curse of comfort and not caring, to a place of passion, genuine love, and concern for my neighbor? Often, apathy comes from feeling overwhelmed, feeling helpless, and being overly concerned with comfort. So, if you are taking notes, what we want to do is turn those things around. How do we overcome apathy? First we should…

OVERCOMING APATHY: CONSISTENTLY EXPOSE YOURSELF TO SOMETHING THAT CREATES A RIGHTEOUS DISCOMFORT.

Probably the most important part of this idea is consistency. A lack of consistency results in a lack of interest. You do something once or twice and you really felt like it was meaningful and changed the way you looked at something, but then over time you forget about it and life goes back to normal.

For example, if you have ever been on a mission trip, church camp, marraige retreat, or something similar you were probably uncomfortable at first. On the mission trip you see the poverty and horrible living conditions and it just breaks your heart. While you are there, something shifts in you and you think, “I will never be the same.” You go from caring about what they do or don’t have to caring about them as people and you love them.

Then you come home, and if you don’t consistently expose yourself to something that makes you righteously uncomfortable, life gradually takes back over and goes back to normal. You have to focus on the bills, the kids, the job, the water leak in the kitchen, and before long the apathy is back.

Before you go and start trying to make your self uncomfortable by putting yourself in awkward situations, let me explain “righteous discomfort.” When you expose yourself to something that makes you righteously uncomfortable, you are putting yourself around some things that move you on behalf of God. You are around things that you know break the heart of God enough that it starts to break your heart as well.

Then you realize that you aren’t okay with it either. You can’t allow this to happen. You start to realize that God put you here to make a difference and apathy just can not exist in your heart. A righteous discomfort will transform apathy into a FIERCELY RIGHTEOUS PASSION.

Before Paul was Paul, he was known as Saul. Saul spent a lot of time and energy hating and killing Christ followers. At a certain point, God changed his heart and then Paul had a fiercely righteous passion for his kinsmen, the Israelites. Right after Paul writes that we are more than conquerors, he tells us what makes him righteously passionate. In chapter 9, verse 1, he starts off by saying, “I am dead serious about this…”

Romans 9:1 NLT

With Christ as my witness, I speak with utter truthfulness. My conscience and the Holy Spirit confirm it.

Three times he says, “I am telling the truth about this.” In Paul’s culture, saying something three times was as serious as it gets. There was litterally no possible way to make something a bigger deal. So he says three times, “God as my witness, I am telling you the truth about this!”

Romans 9:2–3 NLT

My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.

He just listed all these great things about God, we are more than conquerors, God loves us, He chose us, nothing can separate you from God’s love, He helps us in our weakness, and one day He will give us a new body and you can’t even imagine how amazing it will be! BUT I promise you that I would give it all up and suffer for all eternity if it would save my people and make them right with God.

That is a fiercely righteous passion. When you really care, you can’t do nothing. Instead, you are willing to give everything. To overcome apathy we need to consistently expose ourselves to something that creates a righteous discomfort. Next, we need to channel that passion by focussing on something…

OVERCOMING APATHY: CHANNEL YOUR PASSION BY FOCUSING ON SOMETHING.

Sometimes there are just simply too many things to care about. That’s okay. You don’t have to give all of your undying attention to everything you learn about in a day. Instead, focus on something. Many many things will catch your attention, but few things will actually capture your heart! What captures your heart?

When you watch the news many things concern you, but when you hear a story about unborn children your heart just breaks and you get righteously uncomfortable. Or maybe you are really passionate about human trafficking. Maybe you have a heart for people in other countries who don’t have access to clean drinking water, so you feel passionate about helping somehow.

You may feel an urge to start something noone else in our area is doing. Maybe you want to invest in people who are struggling with addictions or mental illnesses. You feel called to start a mission to place these peole and help them get on their feet. Maybe you’ve been there before with addictions or heartbreak and you know that you made it through with God, so you want to help channel others in similar situations to God so God can radically transform their lives like He did yours.

Maybe you don’t feel called to start something, but help with something that is already up and running. You could join up with a group of people going on a mission trip, or help with someone’s discipleship program or bible study.

Instead of trying to make a small difference in several places, choose to make a big difference in a few. Or even just one. When Jesus showed up, He was focused. He stated many times that He came to seek and save the lost. He repeated it over and over again in different ways. He came to set captives free. He came so that people may have life. He didn’t come for the righteous, but the lost. That it is the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy.

When the voice in your head says that it’s not possible, don’t listen to it. Apathy always tries to find an excuse, but passion finds a way. Channel that passion by focusing on something. Sometimes it will feel like too much and and you feel helpless. That’s when it may be time to embrace what hurts…

OVERCOMING APATHY: CHANNEL YOUR PASSION BY EMBRACING WHAT HURTS.

Paul said, “My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief...” He embraced the grief and it drove him forward. A lie apathy and comfort wants us to believe is that it is easier not to care at all. It’s better if I just don’t even get involved. In order to believe that lie, you must concede purpose. We all have a purpose. If you never allow yourself to let go of your purpose you will realize that it is easier to hurt with a purpose than to exist without one. It’s better to hurt with a divine calling, than to live without one.

So often too many people think of blessings as more of the stuff that we want. I don’t think that is what God intends at all. In fact, I think that leads to worshipping and idolizing the stuff. Sometimes it is important for me to take a step back and realize that I need to be blessed with a burden.

When you read scripture you will find over and over again people who were blessed with a burden. Moses was blessed with a burden. He didn’t think it was right that his people were treated like they were, so at some point he goes to the Pharoah and says, “Let my people go!”

David was blessed with a burden when he was just a kid. What could a kid do? Nobody would stand up to the giant, Goliath, but David looks up at him and says, “Who are you to come against the armies of my living God?”

Later, when David was the one causing the hurt, Nathan was blessed with a burden to stand up to the powerful king. He tells David a story of an evil man and then says, “You are that man!”

Jesus was blessed with a burden. How thankful am I that He would not allow apathy to lull him into a state of comfort when He had a burden for the lost sheep who needed a shepherd!

To close, I want to leave you with a powerful thought. It is a Fransican Blessing. My prayer for us is that the next time apathy tries to keep us from the amazing work God has called us to, He will instead bless us with a righteous discomfort. Here is what it says…

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy. And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

- A Fransican Blessing