Complacency in Christian Life

2 Corin 2:11 – the Word of God is clear in instructing to us on how we as believers need to be cautious. The devils always plans of attacking using various strategies and tactics to attack God’s children and the Bible is very clear on instructing the believers on how the believers need to be aware of the various strategies of the devil.

Tonight in the next few moments we will be looking at the topic of complacency in Christian life and how this is SIN in the eyes of God and we will be looking at from Mal 1:6-14. Before we go into the passage, let us examine what is complacency. As believers of today we need to acknowledge that this is one of the unique weapons that the devil uses amongst the believers today in their Christian lives. Even when I speak on this topic I also admit I have been a victim to the sin of complacency in my Christian life but as we read in Heb 4:16 we have a High Priest who can sympathise with our weakness, God has helped me this far to even overcome this sin so far.

The reason for me which I started on studying this topic was my president of ACA, Dr Joy M George, on our farewell night gave us a lecture, and he stated like this to the graduating class, “congratulations to all of you who are graduating, but I want you to know that now this is the time perfect for the devil to attack you, the reason being all of you are graduating have acquired knowledge and have the knowledge of the various understandings and teaching of scholars, beware of the devil who might cause you to sin if you are complacent.” My president’s words, prompted me to think further. I eventually realised this is a serious topic of study and also how much this sin can be affecting everyone’s lives.

I pray that all who listen to me tonight will go back to examine the topic of tonight and also study it, as this is supposed to taken with great caution. Dear brothers and sisters, there is a high price to complacency we as believers in Christ have to pay for, as complacency make us to abandon our true purpose to what we were created for and placed on this earth. Complacency in a Christian’s life stops him/ her to be the spiritual leader in our families; it makes us to take a lethargic attitude to our Christian life. Complacency makes us to stop the core disciplines that we first practised in our Christian life when started to walk with God, and tonight shall we examine are we complacent in our Christian lives.

So what is complacency? Complacency is the feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better. Or in other words it is the self satisfied state of negligence or carelessness. Dear brethren some of you seated here might get hurt but here I stand begging you to deeply consider this question to study on the topic of complacency. The believers of today whom God has placed on earth have become too comfortable with Christian lives that we neglect our responsibilities to God, as a believer.

The guy who wrote the song Our God is an Awesome God- Rich Mullins, passed away. In his statement he says like this in one of his interviews about evil in a believers life and how believers need to focus in prayers - Lord deliver us from evil - from moral duplicity and weakmess, from laziness and spiritual complacency, from those lies we tell ourselves from our fear of facing the truth. More than the persecution of the RSS or the BJP or the ISIS it is the sin of complacency that every believer needs to be fighting out.

AW Tozer, a biblical teacher states like this complacency is easy and it is the enemy of spiritual growth. There are several Biblical references we see on how complacent the people were, example Lot who had a complacent life, in the land of Sodom and Gomorah, he agreed on to give his daughters to adultery. Then we see about King David who was complacent in his Christian life, where he being a king knowing the truth committed adultery with Bathsheba and send to kill Uriah. The issue of complacency, comes to highlight in our Christian lives when we face a situation, but tonight let me ask you brethren how much are you investing in your Christian lives to avoid complacency. How much time of the day do you invest in reading the Bible and in meditation? How much time you invest in prayer to God? Our Christian life should be a life of relationship to God that grows every day. How do you expect your Christian lives to be successful if you have no investment in your Christian lives? And here is where we see the problem of complacency in Christian lives.

The summary of all this we can evaluate that we see how these characters and the other such people took their Christian life very leniently. So according to the Bible we can conclude that complacency is when the believer has reached a point of satisfaction in which he/ she becomes comfortable in their faith and don’t feel the need to move forward in their Christian life and SIN slowly starts to influence in his or her Christian life. This is even a huge and valuable lesson for me, where when I examine, I recall how much I need to be careful in my ministry – can complacency affect an evangelist in ministry? YES.

HOW do we evaluate growth in our Christian Life?

• Regular Church Attendance (church meetings)

• Isolation from unbelievers/ people in the world.

• Philanthropy works

• Participation of Church Events

THIS IS NOT GROWTH. THESE ARE ACTIVITIES, AND MANY CHRISTIANS ARE VICTIMS TO ACTIVITIES AND DON’T GROW. EVENTUALLY THEY LIVE A LIFE OF COMPLACENCY

BIBLICAL EXAMINATION OF COMPLACENCY

• Complacency creates a false security in spiritual life

 Joel 1:1-20 - Warning

 Wealth and luxury a false security

 Your abandon God’s purpose for your life, you abandon his help.

Complacency develops spiritual laziness

• Mal 2:1-12 - All of them led casual lives making them vulnerable to sin

• Call of awakening – REPENT & CONFESS

• Peace and prosperity stood as deceptions

• Never let material abundance hinder your spiritual growth.

• Complacency creates a Luke-warm faith

 Rev 3:14-16

 Believers need to have firm answers – YES to the truth and NO to SIN

 Never live a life of adjustment

 The lethargic behaviour led them to idleness

 The church had become hardened and self satisfied and it was destroying itself

PRACTICAL EXAMINATION OF COMPLACENCY

We have seen the a few signs of complacency and how this can hinder our Christian lives, but its not enough to put a stop to our understanding over there it is important to see how this is a SIN in the eyes of the Almighty God. Shall we all turn to the book of Mal 1:6-14.

 Disrespecting God (vv 6-7)

Their clouded sight of their spiritual lives, created a spiritual pollution which caused them to serve God in a disrespectful manner. Here we see that the priests were accepting blemished animals dor selfish reasons. They disrespected the Lord, as they lost their vision.

When we compare this portion with our lives, we can analyze here that, we no longer offer blood sacrifices. But do we truly honour God with our lives, praise, time and treasure or are we offering disrespectfully to God. Are we giving to God our second choices and half hearted services.

• Unfit Services to God (Vv. 8-9)

Clouded vision to their spiritual lives created a spiritual pollution, and this influenced their spiritual lives where their services which they offered to God were unpleasing. God hates unpleasant services to Him as we won’t accept them. Deut 15:21 – this was a commandment given to them their complacent behavior, made them to neglect their services to God. This is what the priest were doing, not only God the Almighty rejected them in verse 8 we see he terms these offerings as evil, because the offerings were unfit.

Similarly, we the NT believers of today need to be cautious about what we offer to God, when we allow spiritual pollution to remain in our lives, we offer God disqualified services, and God will not accept it. Sin keeps us from fully participating in the plans of God.

• Feeling of APATHY (Vv. 10-14)

Finally, when we allow spiritual pollution to remain in our lives we develop mocking attitudes. Vv 13 we see how the priests who served God were lethargic and lazy in their work. They were bored with serving the Lord. The priests’ attitudes were so bad that God wished they would shut down the temple.

After examining on the topic of complacency I have personally realised that it is easy to fall into the sin of complacency. The creator of the universe call us to glorify Him, in our worship, praises, devotions and we struggle to attend church or spend time in study and prayer. We take what is holy and treat it as mundane

I would like to conclude by looking at 2 persons who have challenged me with their secular lives how they stood against complacency in their lives as Christians. They stood in the cooperate areas of life and proves to all of us how not to be complacent in Christian lives, these are examples to remind us of how we need to improve our lives.

ESTHER - Esther 4. We see how Esther the queen took her role very seriously in the cooperate life. She was the wife of King Xerses. Despite all the privileges she was more concerned about her own people, what and how she could serve God. She was never complacent as Jewish person. She always remembered WHAT CAN I DO FOR GOD.

DANIEL – a man who was under the rule of 3 major rulers, yet he led a life of humbleness and never let complacency overtook him. Because of the power he had people around him, started envying him, and placed traps to remove him and we know the rest of the story. So we need to start asking ourselves when we compare ourselves with Daniel. Are we leaving a complacent lives in the offices. Do people in office or work place know this is not you - you will not compromise on bribe, lie, go against your moral standards. It is not because you are great but because it is the God whom we serve is great and we belong to him and that is why we hold our moral standard high or where you study, do they know who you are? What is not negotiable with Daniel they knew it very well? And they started to use that against Daniel. Daniel teaches that all throughout his life his first priority was God. Honour God and He will add Glory to you.

My dear co-brothers and sisters, complacency is a serious matter, and this is sin. We must confess our sin to the Lord and allow Him to purify us of that which taints our lives and souls. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” This promise still holds true for all of us even today. So repent, break free from complacency, and bring honor to God.