Apathy

Have you ever received a medical diagnosis saying you’d get worse if you don’t make changes? What about other areas of your life…things aren’t going well and they’ll only get worse if something doesn’t change? As we continue our series, 7 Deadly Sins of Suburbia, JP teaches us about apathy by studying Hebrews 5 & 6.

KEY TAKEAWAYS -People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated. - D.A. Carson -The church will be at the height of its heresy when you call obedience legalism. - AW Tozer -If you go through life doing only what you feel like, you will only grow dysfunctional. You will not grow as a disciple of Christ by only following your feelings. -You could get to heaven and live a completely spiritually impotent life while on earth. -So many Christians are not living the Christian life. They are not a threat to the enemy, and they are simply drifting toward death. -The Bible teaches the exact opposite of apathy and comfort. It teaches to embrace hardships and challenges and discipline. -Apathy: A resistance to spiritual growth. -No Christian is exempt from living out the call of 2 Timothy 2:2: The things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to faithful people who will teach others also. -We fight apathy by growing as a healthy disciple. -Disciples make other disciples, and all Christians are disciples. A “disciple making disciple” is redundant. -May we never be a people that is more American than we are Christian. -You don’t go to the gym to be entertained, you go to workout (to change). Similarly, you don’t go to church to be entertained, you go to be changed. To become more like Jesus. -We fight apathy with a steady diet of God’s Word. -At some point, Christians must outgrow a diet of only devotionals. They must learn to read and study the Bible on their own. -If reading your Bible is hard, that doesn’t make it wrong or bad. Going to the gym is also hard…you go to grow, and you only grow when it’s hard. -If you take pictures of a tree one year apart, you won’t see much of a difference. If you take pictures of a tree 20-years apart, there will be a huge difference. Mostly, in a way you can’t even see: deep, strong roots that are the foundation and strength of the tree and it’s growth. -There has never been a person of faith—let alone great faith—who doesn’t pray. -We fight apathy by exercising our faith. -As you exercise your faith, sin will become more and more repulsive to you. You won’t stop sinning on this side of death, but it will become less attractive. -We don’t work for our salvation, we work from our salvation. -If you drift toward apathy, one of two things will be true: you will die and go to hell (you were never a Christian to begin with), or, you will get to the end of your life and realize you completely wasted if.

MENTIONED OR RECOMMENDED RESOURCES -Suggested Scripture study: Hebrews 5:11-6:8; 1 Timothy 4:7-8; 2 Timothy 2:2 -Sermon: Entitlement