Undo: Spiritual Apathy

Welcome

Good morning Local, my name is Jacob Ward and I am honored to serve on staff here as the NextGen minister. Thank you all for being here this Sunday. This week we are starting a new series called undo.

“Throughout this series, we will delve more deeply into the surface-level sayings of what it truly means to follow in the footsteps of Christ. Together, we will explore the tangled areas in our lives that Jesus wishes to unravel, allowing us to live a genuine and authentic faith. By the end of this journey, attendees will gain an awareness of the obstacles standing in the way of their spiritual growth and rekindle their zeal for a sincere relationship with Jesus.”

That’s what we want is for this church to have a genuine zeal and sincere relationship with Jesus so that we can go out and spread His Gospel to our community and the world.

Today’s message is on Spiritual Apathy we will be camped out in Revelation 3:14-22 if you’re following along in your Bibles if not we will have it on screen when it comes time to read. But First

What is Spiritual Apathy? Apathy: “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.”

What is Spiritual Apathy? To understand what spiritual apathy is lets look at the definition of Apathy: “lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.”

Spiritual Apathy means you have a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for things of God. This does not always mean you don’t believe, it means you are no longer approaching your faith with zeal or passion instead you are just going through the motions. I.E. The fire is gone. This is a problem that is prevalent all over the world but especially here in America because we have turned church into just another checked box on our weekly chore list. This is a struggle we all face from time to time, I know personally I have faced this issue because I tend to be a very routine oriented person.

But don’t just take my word for it lets always test things which Scripture, lets look at what Scripture has to say about the topic, lets go to Revelation 3:15-16

“15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” Revelation 3:15-16

Revelation 3:15–16 CSB

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.

Whats going on here is John is writing to 7 different churches in the first few chapters of revelation. In Revelation 3:14-22 John is writing to the church in Laodicea. The church in Laodicea is described here as neither hot nor cold but as lukewarm. Whats going on here is a very clever reference to the water system that the town had. So from one direction they would have water coming in from the hot springs and from another direction they would have cold water coming in. The hot water coming in could be used for cleansing or cooking or heating up their homes or bodies, while the cold water coming in would be refreshing and soothing to burns or on a hot summer day. But in both cases the water would be lukewarm by the time it gets to the town making it useless for either. The water is not hot enough to cleanse or cold enough to refresh. Just like this water the people in the town were not hot enough to bring cleansing or warmth to those around them or were they cold enough to bring refreshment. Essentially Jesus is saying here, If you were hot I could use you to bring cleansing or warmth or if you were cold I could use you to refresh the community, instead you are lukewarm, I will spit you out.

What Does Spiritual Apathy Look Like?

Spiritual apathy looks like, being harsh with your kids or your spouse, being rude to friends and family or your server at a restaurant, road rage, feelings of bitterness being stored up, drawing away, isolating yourself, picking up old or new bad habits or coping mechanisms. etc. I don’t know for sure how it looks in your life. For me it always comes out in how anxious I am or how I treat other people.

Causes?

Are you living in Unconfessed sin? (Psalm 32:3-5) David writes this in the book of Psalms.

“ 3  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

4  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah

5  I acknowledged my sin to you,

and I did not cover my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”

and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah”

What are you thinking about/filling yourself with?

Are you filling yourself with media that isn’t glorifying to God, media that has overly crude and sexual themes or media that is just dark and depressing or mind numbing?

Maybe you’re physically filling yourself with things you shouldn’t things liked drugs and alcohol that alter your mind and sever that connection you have with God.

Is your faith based on feelings/events?

Are you still chasing that high from an event like CIY or from a really good worship set or concert that you recently went too?

Are you dealing with grief or trauma in an unhealthy way?

Trauma and grief are powerful powerful things that can take up all your energy without you even knowing it.

Maybe you’re drawing away for your faith community.

Or maybe you feel you’re just too busy to truly connect with God.

I don’t exactly know what the cause is for you that is something you’ll have to pray and ask God to point out for you or ask those closest to you to help point these things out.

For me personally its being too consumed with something im interested in that makes me selfishly too busy. Let me explain.

So I’ll get really into a show or a video game or an artist or maybe a new skill or activity and I will fill my time with that thing completely making me feel inside that I am too busy to connect with God because I want to devote my attention to that thing. Now these things aren’t necessarily a bad thing they can be work or learning about how to better take care of my pets or learning a new skill or something. But the bad part comes from when they distract from my time with God. When this happens I tend to get more anxious and I tend to get more rude and cruel with those I care about.

Every time i think of this problem I think of this story. So anyone who knows me well knows how much I love heavy music. Heavy music is either metal music or hardcore music or punk however you want to cut it up for me the heavier the better. I was actually introduced to Jesus through heavy music but that’s a story for another day. Now a lot of people don’t know this but there’s actually a lot of Christian heavy music that is quite good. This story actually takes place at a concert of one of those Christian metal bands. To set the stage a little bit during this time I had just started dating this girl and two weeks after we started dating, she went out of the country for 4 and a half months to study abroad for a semester. I know what wonderful timing. (It’s okay though it worked out in the end were married now) I was also working a job I didn’t like and just trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life but more importantly what God wanted me to do with my life. It was honestly a fairly tough season. This amazing girlfriend I had decided to do something nice and bought me two tickets to see a band I really like called wolves at the gate at their album release show for their album eclipse. Isn’t she the best? she was half the world away and still bought me and a friend tickets so that I wouldn’t have to go alone. It was an incredible show and we had a blast the whole time. Now something about metal shows is that they have these things called mosh pits where a bunch of sweaty people jump around and push each other and throw each other around. It’s not something I would call a calm environment. Anyone who knows me also knows that I personally very much enjoy these mosh pits for better or worse. So I’m in the mosh pit and there is chaos around me and were all really into this song and worshipping God in our own way when this guy comes up to me, randomly someone I’ve never met, and he just starts praying for me… in the middle of a mosh pit… where there is feet and fists flying and people pushing and falling and jumping on each others heads… hes praying. This prayer helped me a lot and over the next few months I started to figure out what God wanted from me and how I could serve Him best. But this story has always stuck with me. If that man wasn’t too busy to pray for me in the middle of a mosh pit, I am never too busy, there is never something too important, there is never something more entertaining in my life or more pressing that I cannot take time out of my day to connect with God.

Solution

So what do we do about Spiritual apathy?

one writer for gotquestions.org writes this “What’s the solution, then, for turning spiritual apathy into a renewed love and passion for Jesus Christ? The word to the spiritually apathetic Ephesian church was, “Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:4). The spiritually apathetic person needs to remember, repent, and renew.” gotquestions.org

Lets look at this passage. This comes in the chapter just before Revelation 3 where John is talking to the church in Ephesus

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 2

3 I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary. 4 But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. 5 Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.

The Church in Ephesus was doing things right, they had endured a lot of trials and had remained through them but had grown callous and forgotten the love they first had. So John calls them to repentance and prayer and also to remember God. Ask God to forgive you and renew your soul and remind you of His sacrifice.

I was just asked recently by someone what book I would recommend they read to get back into the swing of things. I always recommend one of the Gospels, The Gospels lay out the life of Jesus and remind us of His life, death, burial, and Resurrection for us that gives us salvation from sins and life everlasting with God that bring us back to that place where we started. With Him.

So the solution? Prayer, reading the Word and remembering Jesus sacrifice, and being obedient to Him by serving. And something that really helps is plugging into your church and growing and keeping each other accountable. Its easy to grow stagnant in our faith if we are not putting it into practice by serving others, James talks about this in his book faith without works is dead.

We knew that, this isn’t something new, however this is hard to do because of something I like to call the hunger principle.

Now this isn’t found in Scripture or anything but the hunger principle is this. “When you have been without food for a long time the thought of eating food makes you feel sick, you know it will help ease the pain in your stomach but the thought of doing it is unappealing, the same goes for spiritual apathy. The enemy is trying to keep you in that hungry but apathetic state, we must rely on God to pull us out.”

Consistent time with God through prayer and reading His Word is hard, but necessary. Just like that guy in the mosh pit we have no excuse.

King David went through seasons of spiritual apathy most of the time due to trauma and grief or an unrepentant sin he had in his life. In psalm 51 we actually have a recorded prayer He prayed to help him get out of it.

Lets pray this together, you don’t have to say the words just read them and offer them up to God.

Psalm 51:10–13 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.”

In just a few minutes after our next song together our friend Henry is going to be baptized into Christ. Praise God.

I figured now would be a great time to be reminded why we are baptized and to remember the Gospel.

-Gospel presentation-

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Jesus was with God in the beginning when he created all things. Father, Son, and Spirit all present at once to create all things including man. They create Adam and then Eve from Adam. Adam and Eve are in the garden of Eden with God, a paradise with anything they could ever need no death no pain no sickness, true paradise. God only gave them one rule, don’t eat of this one tree or you’ll die. Then enters in satan in serpent form. He convinces Eve to take a bite of that fruit through deceit. Eve takes a bite then so does Adam thus entering in the first sin. They gain the knowledge of good and evil. They are kicked out of the garden because now they cannot be in the presence of God because He is too good and they have been corrupted. God gives a promise as He is doing this that one day someone will come and crush the head of the serpent but he will be bitten in the process. What happens next is thousands of years worth of humans sinning and being evil while God is creating a nation giving them the Law which was a set of rules and promises to try to restore humans to God through sacrifice of animals for sins and religion. God still uses this Law, certain prophets, kings, and average people to bring about the birth of His son Jesus, God in flesh. There from the beginning, in glory with God eternally yet decided to come down to our filth as a poor, homeless, Jewish refugee. He lives a perfect sinless life, even allowing Himself to be tempted and feel human pains. He fulfills this Law and sets up a new system with His teaching and then He is betrayed by His best friend given over to die. He is crucified for our sins, He committed no crime yet was punished as if He had committed the crimes of all humanity. His sacrifice was for the atonement of sins of all humans, He died our death. Then three days later He is resurrected by the power of God and is alive today. His body beaten and pierced for us in the most brutal way possible, suffocating on a pike partially disemboweled by the whips. Then pierced in His side spilling His blood which cleanses us. All this God has done with you in mind. He gives us three easy steps in His Word to get to Him. Repent of your sins, believe that He is God and confess this with your mouth, then be baptized into Him for the forgiveness of sins past and future and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. All of this is yours. All of this He did for you because He loves you, He wants you, He deeply deeply cares for you and wants His children with Him in heaven.

now as the band comes up and begins to play let me make this call. If you need any prayer we will have people up front or in the back that will be happy to pray with you, please grab someone or if that makes you uncomfortable wait until after the service and pull someone with a blue “you belong here” shirt and have them pray with you. We are committed to praying with you. Maybe you’ve never made the decision to follow Jesus and you feel Him tugging at your heart to make that next step, come up and talk to one of us, or fill out the next steps portion of the connection card with your name so we know who you are. Thank you, lets worship.