When the Fire of Faith Feels Like It’s Gone – Highlight Episode 383

The apathy is a camouflaged enemy, and we should shoot it down, it'll kill us, and we'll

go to kill it before it kills us.

One portion of Scripture that thrills me like 10,000 other portions of Scripture is

where Jesus cleared the temple.

The zeal of his house, eight, and up, what does that mean?

It means that he was zealous to a point of violence and is seeking for the Father's glory.

But if you can get that zeal, which is the opposite of apathy, you'll do things that

you wouldn't think possible in your life, if you can get that zeal.

What criticism of me is I don't think of consequences, but sometimes that's good when you're

zealous for God.

Jesus didn't think of consequences.

When he cleared the temple, he knew what the consequences would be.

They wanted his death.

Straight after that, they said they'd conspired to kill him, but he didn't care, because

the zeal of God's house had eaten him up.

How do you define apathy?

Maybe it's a slow drift.

We talk about slow drifting.

Somebody comes knocking on your door and it's a woman not fully clothing, you're not

answering the door.

It doesn't start like that.

It doesn't work like that.

If somebody offers you cocaine, you're never done drugs, you're never going to take

cocaine.

Nobody, it doesn't start like that.

There's always this progression downward of just avoiding certain things, avoiding certain

people, unfortunately and sadly, that slow drift is what we need to really be careful

with, where, hey, I'm going to skip a family Divo.

I'm going to skip going to church on Sunday because my team is playing and they're on television

this week.

So we think that fire, it once burned bright and then it just begins to flicker and before

you realize that flickering becomes obnoxious, right?

And so you don't fan it, what happens?

It goes out and you'd much rather have it out than have it begin to flicker.

You want that commotion, that noise of the spirit and then we look at it, like the spirit

begins to just be noisy and nosy, perhaps, even inside of our lives, you know, just give

me a break, give me a moment and there's this slow drift and before we realize and recognize

we're apathetic, we're numb to conviction, oh, there's only one F word inside there.

I could go with that in that movie.

I could, I could, that doesn't, this doesn't need a bit angel or clear play and then we

begin to rationalize maybe two or three or whatever and it just, it's progressive.

You must always be on your guard, always putting on the full armor of God, always be alert,

always be aware of your situation, your circumstance, having those bouncing eyes as Steve Arterburn

talks about, bouncing eyes in the midst of our circumstance, always wanting to say,

search me and try me, see if there's any wicked way in me, lead me in the way we're

lasting because if you don't, there is a danger attached to that.

So rebellion isn't necessarily completely outward.

There's just a drifting, yeah, and I like that you highlighted that mark, it's not always

overt, it's not always this, you know, expression of like, I don't care, but that slow drift,

little by little and you just get to a place where you say, how did I get here?

It's almost like this wonder, but small degrees.

Ultimately, what we're talking about is what revelation calls a lukewarmness and lukewarmness

is often misunderstood.

We think like when we hear it say, you know, it says, you're neither hot nor cold, like

certainly, certainly the scriptures aren't saying you need to be absolutely emotionally

on fire or freezing cold, cold don't care.

What that lukewarmness means, it means ineffective.

You are ineffective for what God means to do through you in this world because you have

an apathy and as it pertains to the church, that letter was written to, their ineffectiveness

in their apathy came from comfort, like we are that comfortable city.

If you have more than one pair of shoes, if your household has more than one car, you

are in the top 1% of the world in comfort will make you ineffective, it will grow your

apathy for the gospel when you are uncomfortable.

When you are in deep need and deep pain, your mission in life, your call, the great commission

is so much more clear and more importantly, your dependency on God is so much more obvious

and that's the scary thing is that comfort makes us feel self-sufficient and when we forget

our dependency on God, we grow apathetic to God's will.

That's really, really good because I was having similar thoughts, how can I bring this

back to evangelism and you did it.

Apathy is a numbness, what's the question, it's a numbness about what, it's a numbness

about the fate of the lost, this is what I think.

It's a bad fellow of discouragement, when you get discouraged, you tend to become numb

and apathetic about the great commission and so what I've got to do is a Christian

is say no matter what life throws at me, the lost are still lost.

As soon as it's still going to hell and so what we should be saying is I have no rights

as a Christian, I'm not my own, my commitment to the great commission is ironclad, I've

set my face as a flint toward Jerusalem and stubborn for the gospel.

I love that word flint because a flint is such a hard stone, if you hit it, you get sparks

and that's the attitude of mine, that's the attitude of mine that we should have to

be the great commission to the lost.

So what does it look like, apathy's camouflaged, I said that earlier it's an enemy that comes

camouflaged, was it look like it, wakes up in the morning and thinks about itself, how

can I make myself most happy today?

It's self-send, self-absorbed and self-indulgent, but a life that's fueled by zeal for God's

will is a life of self-denial, wakes up in the morning and says how can I serve God today?

From my understanding in Scripture, to do that means to joyfully follow in the footsteps

of Jesus, who said he was here to seek and say that which is lost.

So nothing in this world matters for me, it's transient, it's chasing the wind but most

importantly it's evil.

You know, we said, oh, life has vented this world's vain but no, it's evil in God's eyes.

Everything about it is like Lazarus after four days, it should stink in our nostrils

because we want to do God's will.

And so the Christian says with Jesus, like the dead, bury the dead, we have something

infinitely more important to do and that's to seek and say that which is lost.

Oh, good.

You know, I think one of the main causes of apathy and numbness is forgetfulness.

You know, you think about like one of the beautiful days we experienced here in California

which is close to every day.

You know, there are days where I'll walk outside and I live in a very, very quiet neighborhood.

It'll be like one of those clear, blue sky days.

You can't hear any noise of cars, traffic, the weather is perfect and there's a calmness.

It's so hard at that moment to remember that the wrath of God is burning hot against

evil wicked sinners.

That's not on my mind at that moment, right?

So if I see my neighbor, hey, Tom, how you doing?

I'm not thinking.

If he doesn't know the Lord, like he is a breath away from sealing his fate to be consumed

in the eternal lake of fire forever.

And guys, look, I can't tell you how many times I have praised God that I wrote something

down on a sticky note because it was massively important.

I was about to walk out the door or whatever.

I was going to take that thing with me or do that thing or whatever.

And I'm like, oh, I'm so glad it was a reminder.

And I think what we need in our lives are constant reminders before our eyes because

we know we're prone to water and forget the wrath of God is burning hot.

Sinners are on their way to hell.

There are believers that need encouragement who are broken right now and disheartened.

One's the last time I picked up the phone and called that brother or sister, reached

out to them.

You know, there are people right now in convalescent homes rotting away with no family

members witness visiting them or anyone sharing the gospel with them.

There are people in prison right now that I could write to and reach.

I mean, that's what I'm talking about, like being mindful of all that's happening when

we're not aware that it's happening, but it's happening constantly.

In our lives, are we attentive to God's calling, no matter what room we are in, no matter

what situation are we in, are we listening for the Lord's calling on our lives?

Are we so busy and so distracted that we cannot hear his booming voice?

Or we don't want to hear it because we have our own agenda.

That terrifies me.

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