Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 31, 2021 | Bad Religion - Apathy

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October 31, 2021 | Bad Religion - Apathy · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Today's Halloween.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's also the 504th anniversary of the Reformation.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to indulge in candy or you're upset about the indulgences of the Catholic Church, today is a great day for you.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hope that you guys can make it to our trunk or treat this evening from 2 to 4 p.m.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: here at the church.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are starting a new series called Bad Religion.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Bad Religion is based on this idea that throughout the Bible, God's people have struggled to basically live out the commands that God had called them to.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to be going through the Bible in a couple different places and looking at this idea that says that when we fail to follow God's commands, two important things happen.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that we step away from God ourselves.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We lose faith in God.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the second thing that happens is the world around us loses faith in Christianity.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: See, bad religion is not just about failing to meet the expectations that God has set.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's also a lot about the idea that there are people around us who are not Christians who we are trying to share the gospel with, but their knowledge of the Bible and their experience with Christians has almost made it prohibitive for them to think that Jesus is who he really is.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most controversial subjects, most research subjects at least, in psychology is the benefit or detriment that religion has had upon society.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find everything from all the way to one extreme that it is the worst thing that could possibly happen to society, that it is some man-made contrivance that leads to, I looked this up, power struggles, tribalism, diverts generous giving, teaches helplessness, preaches intolerance, hatred, and violence, represses freedom of thought, and fills people with guilt and anxiety.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Alright?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's one side.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the other side is, some people would say, who don't even know God, that religion can be a great thing.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: But why?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: We know why, and it's because Jesus has given us his gospel, and when we are able to faithfully live out the commands of his gospel in the world around us, it is compelling, it is captivating, and there is something that draws people towards it because it's different than anything else they've ever heard.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And not just that it's different, but there is a part of them that is drawn magnetically to their creator.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to make sure that we are living out of faith that is honoring to the Lord.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this morning we're going to be looking at a topic that afflicts every single one of us at various points in time, and that is apathy.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Apathy, the disinterest basically, in God, the idea that we can walk through life saying that we love him, but in reality having no actual love for God.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And to do that, we're going to be looking at the book of Amos this morning.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amos is a book in your Old Testament.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: The pages are probably stuck together on it still.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we are going to be looking at Amos 5 here in just a second.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's going to be our main passage for this morning.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, I wanted to give you a quick little, just up to speed on Amos.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amos was, uh we're actually pretty certain about the date of Amos, about 750, 762 or 760 B.C.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Time works differently, B.C.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh it basically he was a prophet that went to the northern kingdom of Israel during that time.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: The king in the northern kingdom at the time was Jeroboam II, and the king in the southern kingdom of Judah was King Uzia.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh Amos was interesting in that he told us, which is unique among the prophets, what his job was before he became a prophet.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: He says that he was a sheep herder or a sheep breeder, and also that he grew uh sycamore figs, which is sort of a uh kind of from the tree of, or like from the family of the mulberry tree.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, this was his job beforehand, but God called him to this great purpose.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: He called uh Amos from this sort of sleepy little town called Tokoah, which I've highlighted here, which is about 10 miles south of Jerusalem, to the northern kingdom of Israel.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why were there two kingdoms?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've got your kings in order in the Old Testament, you've got Saul and then David and then Solomon.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then after Solomon, the kingdom of Israel breaks into two.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: It splits.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the northern kingdom retains that name Israel, and the southern kingdom goes by the name of the faithful tribe Judah, and Jerusalem is in the southern kingdom.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: But neither one of them are doing really great.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like materially, in terms of like wealth and power at the time, military might, both of them are doing pretty great.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Northern kingdom's doing even better.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But because of that, because of the success that they had had, um, God also sent a number of prophets to them to speak against them and let them know that they were not living up to the standards that he had called them to.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And though, if you know you read your Old Testament, you've got uh basically a chronological story.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Amos had a number of contemporary prophets that were up there in the northern kingdom with him at the time.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, uh, like Isaiah and Micah and Hosea, they were up there with him, ministering, speaking to the northern kingdom, basically the same message.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, oh, and really quick, this is just interesting, but I wanted to say as for why we're so sure about the dating of Amos.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says at the very beginning, Amos 1:1, that he ministered two years before the earthquake.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I mean, I know you can't exactly tell from this photo, but these are the remains of a palace at Hazor, and uh there was a huge earthquake that rocked the entire nation.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Amos talks about it, the prophet Zechariah talks about it, the historian Josephus, who's not in the Bible, um, but also talks about this earthquake, and people who don't care about the Bible at all have found out evidence of this earthquake and the foundations of some of the remains in these bigger locations.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, it's just neat that we're able to really accurately date the uh placement of Amos.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: But why did Amos go to the northern kingdom?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: What was God upset about?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've ever gone to the pool during the summer and uh you've seen all the like brand new lifeguards that are out there, and there are some of them they've got their cool shades on, you know, they're getting their tan, um, they've got all the like sunscreen on their nose or whatever, uh, which I feel like that's a stereotype that I've never actually seen that much in real life.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: That people just put like the blot.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, you see these lifeguards, and some of them, it's pretty obvious that they are way more concerned about the other lifeguards uh than they are on what's happening in the pool.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And for myself, when I go swimming, I'm pretty sure that 80% of the lifeguards could not lift me up from the bottom of a pool if I actually sunk down to the bottom of it.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in a way, Israelites are sort of living this out.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: They are wearing the clothing, they're sitting in the chair, they're they look the part, certainly, of God's people in many ways.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: They are carrying out a lot of his commands technically, specifically the rituals that he had asked them to do, but they're not really doing it with the heart for God.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're just doing it because they were told to be there at a certain place in time.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to, uh we're actually going to read most of Amos chapter 5 together, and uh and then afterwards I want to pull out a couple things from there.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, I'll give you a second to turn to Amos.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Chapter 5, and we'll start in verse 4.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as uh we're reading, I want you to think for a moment what it would be like to be somebody who was living in the northern kingdom and had somebody who is claiming to be a prophet from God come and say all of this stuff to you.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: All right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 For the Lord says to the house of Israel, Seek me and live.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or journey to Beersheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile, and Bethel will come to nothing.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Seek the Lord and live, or he will spread like fire throughout the house of Joseph.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It will consume everything with no one at Bethel to extinguish it.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those who turn justice into wormwood also throw righteousness to the ground.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: The one who made the Pleiades and Orion, which are just constellations, who turns darkness into dawn and darkens day into night, who summons the water of the sea and pours it out over the surface of the earth, the Lord is his name.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: He brings destruction on the strong, and it falls on the fortress.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: They hate the one who convicts the guilty at the city gate, and they despise the one who speaks with integrity.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, because you trample on the poor and exact a grain tax from him, you will never live in the houses of cut stone you have built, you will never drink the wine from the lush vineyards you have planted.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: For I know your crimes are many, and your sins innumerable.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: They oppress the righteous, take a bribe, and deprive the poor of justice at the city gates.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, those who have insight will keep silent at such a time, for the days are evil.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Pursue good and not evil, so that you may live, and the Lord, the God of armies, will be with you as you have claimed.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hate evil and love good, establish justice in the city gate.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the Lord, the God of armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, the Lord, the God of armies, the Lord says, There will be wailing in all the public squares, that will cry out in anguish in all the streets.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: The farmer will be called on to mourn, and professional mourners to wail.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass among you, the Lord has spoken.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: What will the day of the Lord be for you?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: It will be darkness and not light.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It will be like a man who flees from a lion, only to have a bear confront him.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: He goes home and rests his hand against the wall, only to have a snake bite him.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Won't the day of the Lord be darkness rather than light?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even gloom without any brightness in it?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I hate, I despise your feasts.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I will have no regard for your fellowship offerings of fat and cattle.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Take away from me the noise of your songs.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will not listen to the music of your harps, but let justice flow like water, and righteousness like an unfailing stream.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Verse twenty five House of Israel, was it sacrifices and grain offerings that you presented to me during the forty years in the wilderness?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: But you have taken up Sakath, your king, and Caewan, your star god, images you have made for yourselves, so I will send you into exile beyond Damascus.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord, the God of armies, is his name.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: He has spoken.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, um you live in the northern kingdom, and uh your king, Jeroboam II, is practicing and worshiping false gods.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh most of your family, and probably you, unless in your imagined imaginary world you don't want to be this person, but probably you are um worshiping not only to God in uh the temple, um, in and uh, well, not in Jerusalem, but in the northern kingdom.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: But you're doing all these feasts and you're saying, you're like, yeah, we're Israelites, we worship the Lord, He's our King, like all of that stuff.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: But we've also got these side projects going on at the other temples.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you're seeing everybody do it.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal to you to see them worship these false gods.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it's that's not innocent in itself, but the gods that Amos mentions at the end of chapter five, they require child sacrifice.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: These false gods were, um, and the demons behind them ultimately were telling the people that they needed to sacrifice children to them.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so this, think for a second, like this is normal, it's normative for you to see this kind of behavior.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but then for the religious leaders in your nation, the one who are supposed to be guiding you in the laws and commands of the Lord, they are absolutely dishonoring God in the way that they treat the most vulnerable, the poor and the needy.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are two really big problems that Amos draws out from amongst the Israelites here.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is that they are not obeying God.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the second one is that they are acting like they are.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: The apathy that was in their lives, the one that caused them to feel like their relationship with God really wasn't that important after all, was leading to a host of problems.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like rotten fruit collecting flies, um, they were just starting to swarm on this sad nation.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So in Amos 5, 10 through 12, I'm not gonna read all of it again.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this was sort of the condemnation against the people.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Verses 10 through 12.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's brought up a couple different times, but God was so angry with them because those who God cares about the most, being the poor and the needy, the ones who He shows affection towards, they were oppressing them.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: They oppressed the righteous.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Those who were supposed to be filled with justice were taking bribes, and they deprived the poor of justice at the city gates.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: City gates being where some of the judges would sit to hear cases, but in this day and age, unless you had enough money, your the verdict wasn't going to go your way.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so Amos speaks into this nation, and you say, Are we talking about apathy or are we talking about justice and righteousness?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, both.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: One flows from the other.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: The apathy that they had towards the Lord was sort of revealing itself and the way that they were treating the poor and the needy.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what's interesting here, too, is this seems to be kind of the litmus test that God shows throughout the Bible as to whether or not his people are honoring his name.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: How are you treating the poor and the needy?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because God desires righteousness and justice for all people.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was so angry at the idea that there were those in leadership who were not treating others with this justice and righteousness.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the first thing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Amos says, listen, you are not doing what God has called you to do in so many ways.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You are not treating people the way that he wants you to treat people, and that's a problem.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a second problem, too, that comes up, and this one angers God just as much.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 21, I hate, I despise your feasts.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stand the stench of your solemn assemblies.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: What is he talking about?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the list of rituals and sacrifices and celebrations that the Jews were supposed to keep as part of God's law and being a member of the old covenant.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were carrying out, they're like, oh, it's the Day of Atonement, oh, it's the Feast of Tabernacles.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all of this kind of stuff.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going to do these things, celebrating the Passover, yet they were doing it because they wanted to seem like they were holy and mighty compared, you know, to their fellow Israelites, but in reality, there was no part of their heart that was turning towards God.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was empty.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, I hate that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: I hate the fact that you are technically doing what I've asked you to do, but you are not doing it for any of the reasons why I have asked you to do it.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: The second problem that God had with the Israelites here was that he wanted them to see obedience without faith is meaningless.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: The obedience, the just rote repetition of these rituals year after year, while they were then the next day going and sacrificing their children to the gods, he says, I hate that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Amos, he says, I'm not even going to accept your sacrifices.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another point in the Bible, he says, I would rather you just not do any of the sacrifices at all than to do them with the wrong motives.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: God's really upset when people seem to just be going through the motions like that.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the uh condemnation that they're going to receive?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's at the very end of Amos 5.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Amos tells them, hey, listen, you've got this opportunity.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh God has given you this chance.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the earthquake was something that they referenced was part of God's judgment on the land.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But he says that, listen, that was just sort of a foretaste of what's to come, because here soon, if you don't change, and soon was sort of a relative term, that God is going to give you this time to repent.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, you are going, as he says, um, send you into exile beyond Damascus.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is referencing their captivity in Babylon.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: We know from reading the rest of the Bible that they did not change.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: They did not turn from their ways and ultimately went into captivity in Babylon, which resulted in the destruction of much of Israel.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Amos speaks a hard message, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Apathy is painful and it leads to even worse things.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: We can often find ourselves slipping into apathy, but lest we think that this was contained in the Old Testament, that after they got back from Babylon, that they righted every wrong, we skip into the book of Acts, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus has died and been resurrected, and now we are fully into the movement of the early church.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Christianity is exploding, and we've got our first martyr for the faith, Stephen.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in Acts 7, Stephen goes before the Sanhedrin and the high priest and speaks against them.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And he basically gives this rundown of everything that they've ever done wrong.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, throughout history, you have messed up in these ways and these ways and these ways.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the very end of his message, he actually quotes this passage from Amos as a condemnation for the way in which God's people were still acting.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then he gives them the most withering rebuke that you will find in the Bible and condemns them for their activity.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: In Acts 7, this is what Stephen says You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears, great start.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: You are always resisting the Holy Spirit.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: As your ancestors did, you do also.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: They even killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: You received the law under the direction of angels, and yet have not kept it.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Immediately following this, it says that those who were listening and angry with him got up out of their seats, went and rushed him, beat him, dragged him to the city gates, and stoned him.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: They stoned Stephen, they killed him, uh, because of what he was the truth that he was saying.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly enough, the ones who were throwing the stones felt that they, you know, they needed to take off their robes in order to, I don't know, throw better.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they take their clothes and set them at the feet of a guy named Saul.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Saul, who later becomes Paul and writes most of the New Testament.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the case in the Old Testament, it was the case in the early church.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: What about after this?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like Paul eventually becomes the greatest evangelist to the Gentile nation.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's setting up all of these churches.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Surely he was able to create a church that never faced apathy, right?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Revelation, uh, at the very beginning, we see that Jesus is speaking against seven different churches in Asia Minor, and in so in different respects, calling some of them to great things.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some of them he is rebuking.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But at the Church of Ephesus, he says a really interesting statement.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 2, 2 through 5.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: It says, I know your works, your labor, and your endurance, and that you cannot tolerate evil people.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and you have found them to be liars.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you have persevered and endured hardships for the sake of my name, and you have not grown weary, but I have this against you.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: You have abandoned the love you had at first.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Remember then how far you have fallen.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Repent and do the works you did at first.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: But Ephesus was no slouch.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were doing a lot of wonderful things for the Lord that he congratulated them on.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You're carrying out all of these works and doing amazing things in my name.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: You are experiencing persecution and enduring it with faithfulness.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But your motivation is not where it once was.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, if we go back to the book of Ephesians, which right, this is uh the church in Ephesus that Jesus is talking to, we see that in their early years they had found their first love, and they were sticking with it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is why Paul is speaking here.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I never stopped giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Finishes the book of Ephesians.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: The church in Ephesus was massive.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was huge.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: In Asia Minor is one of the biggest churches.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: John, the Apostle John was there, uh, Timothy ministered there, Paul obviously ministered there, he sort of founded.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: The church.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: They received a number of letters.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: They received the book of Revelation, 1st and 2nd Timothy.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: They received, obviously, the letter to the Ephesians.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And some would say that they uh John sent his epistles, 1, 2nd, 3, John, to them as well.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, Ephesus was an important church that was living faithfully.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: But 50, 60 years after the resurrection of Christ, they were still doing the things technically that God had called them to, but their apathy had led to sort of a hollow faith.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: So where does apathy come from?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because, sad as it is to say, apathy still afflicts the church in our modern world.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Apathy comes from a lot of places, though.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It can be caused by burnout, by defiance, or deception.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to burnout, I mean, who among us is not emotionally tired right now?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like over the last two years, who among us is not tired of the news reports and division and negativity, the ways in which your relationships with your friends and family have changed because of a whole lot of things that are going on?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I feel emotionally tired.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, it can be hard to then go into the Bible and see that what God is calling us to do is dive back into the muck and the mire and be the light into the nations.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hard task to fulfill when we are so tired of being in the muck and the mire.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so this burnout, you know, as you can imagine in the early church, probably the persecution of their believers there, the, you know, sort of uh absolutely cruel way in which they were treated by the uh culture around them probably led to a lot of emotional burnout.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh researchers at Ohio State back in the 80s were one of the first to conclusively link stress with a lowered uh immune system.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: They studied students at the university and found that in the three days that they were taking their final exams, that their T I I have this written down.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole lot of medical jargon that I cannot relate to you, but all of the things that fight the bad stuff that's coming into the body were dramatically lowered during those three days.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Their immune system was way out of whack because of stress.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as the final exams were over, they were better able to fight colds and infections.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: When we are tired, it can be easy for us to sort of give in to the culture around us.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: But God says that we have to fight it, and we have to continue to walk forward with him.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Second, apathy can be caused by defiance.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at uh King David, when he sinned with Bathsheba, and you read about his sort of his uh wrestling with God in the Psalms, and he says, God, I have sinned against you, and I feel like we are further apart.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: My sin has made me feel like as if we are distant from each other, even though I know that's not the case.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: In our lives, when we choose to rebel against God and when we choose to indulge in sin and walk away from him, it makes us feel like we aren't as close to God because that is antithetical to everything that God stands for.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we are defiant against him, it is easy to find ourselves apathetic and not caring about his commands.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And third, it can be caused by deception.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: This seems to be sort of the epicenter of the judgment that God was giving to the Israelites and Amos.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was angry with the way they were acting, but sort of with the way you see Amos speaking, or God speaking through Amos to the northern kingdom, it seems like really what he was upset about, most of all, was that they were acting like they were his people and not representing that into the world around them.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, to make a long story short, the whole reason for the law and the commands that we've often go like, why can't they eat pigs?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Is because they were supposed to be set apart and different from the other nations.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to be setting an example.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they had just said, your gods are our gods now too, and we're gonna worship them as well.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: Their deception had led to apathy.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: When they weren't convicted, when they weren't following after God, they said, All the gods are good.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna worship them all, and hopefully, just by spreading out this good will, we won't anger any of them.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a problem.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: So apathy can still afflict us today.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard, but it's got to be eradicated in the church.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't, then we are living out a bad religion.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: And those who look at Christians can say, Man, it doesn't even seem like you're living out the things that you say you believe.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a problem.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we supposed to do?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Amos gives us an answer in Amos chapter 5.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Pursue good and not evil, hate evil and love good.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is it that simple?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also more intricate than we might believe, because these are four separate commands.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: You might say that sounds all the same, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do the good things, not the bad things.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: But we're talking about the difference between the heart and the hands, right?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Or the hands and the heart, if you will.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: That we are supposed to, with our actions, pursue the good things and avoid the evil actions.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: But with our heart, we're supposed to back it up by hating the evil things and loving the good things.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can break it up if you want into sort of a chart like this.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: That we are supposed to love and pursue good and hate and avoid evil.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: All four of these things move independently from one another.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can be great at one and terrible at another.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to sort of almost give yourself grades for them, I mean, I know we're not in school, but uh at the same time, like you can love all of the good things that God has.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: You hear Amos talking, and you're like, yes, uh, be righteous and give proper justice to the poor and the needy.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: But then when it comes to pursuing the good things, we can struggle to live them out in our daily lives.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: We get wrapped up in the way our culture is pulling us away from these things in many ways.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we say, you know what, I love the good that God has, but I'm not always great at living it out.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you are fantastic at technically avoiding evil.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: And by that I mean that the things of this world that are not of God, sin, temptation, Satan's works, that you say, like, man, it's it's really easy for me to avoid evil things, but I don't really understand why it's such a big deal.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love the good, but it seems like some of this is kind of harmless and isn't going to affect that many people.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody really knows about it, so I don't really hate it that much.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's a problem.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a problem because all four of these things, it's like four doors into a castle that is being uh sieged.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And each one of them is vulnerable.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to make sure that we strengthen all four.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't, if we fail to do this, then they get flipped on their heads.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to love and pursue evil and hate and avoid good.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you might say, rightly, uh, that's certainly not where I'm at.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't love evil things.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's weird.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you gotta understand that that's the end point of the path that we're heading on when we become apathetic.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are we saying?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care very much about the things that God has for me.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, and like compared to that, that means that we begin to care more for the things that God hates.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: These are two paths that God is asking us to consider carefully.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: That one of them, when we begin to head down it and we love evil things, he says that that is deserving of judgment.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you think about Revelation and the church in Ephesus, God was speaking to believers.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that we think today about the fact that, if you remember actually our last couple messages in church words, that we are loved by God, right, so much that Jesus died for us, that we have been justified in his sight, that we are seen as righteous, that we have been sanctified by him, meaning that through the blood of Christ we are holy, but that doesn't mean that we always act holy, and it doesn't mean we're always deserving of praise.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: God is speaking to believers in Ephesus in Revelation 2, and he says, Man, you did so many good things, you hated and avoided evil.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: You watched out for the false prophets, you were sticking up for the small guys.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: You were, you know, enduring the hardships and faithful perseverance.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: But man, you really kind of stopped caring about the reason why you're doing it in the first place, and you're heading down a dangerous path.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're not in the dangerous territory yet, you're not doing the evil things, but that's that's where that path leads.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, what should our lives be characterized by?
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Going back once more to the book of Amos, this is how he finishes.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: But let justice flow like water and righteousness like an unfailing stream.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Amos's vision through God, I should reverse it, God's vision through Amos was that the nation of Israel would follow him, say they followed him, and that their actions would flow out of that so it would look like they were following him.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: That to those, which was the whole purpose, the the aliens and the foreigners who were coming into their land, they would say, There is something different about these people, way different than my people, and I want to be a part of what they've got going on.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: In our world today, ultimately, Christianity is the solution to the world's problems, both now and eternally is the solution to the world's problems.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if we don't act like it's the solution to the world's problems, then it's hard to sort of bemoan people who say that they don't believe us when we tell them that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like that makes sense.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: So in this series, uh, I just want you to know my goal is to not lay on you a heavy burden, but rather to sort of help us both of us, because I I struggle with hypocrisy too.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is easy for me to love the good things, but sometimes do the evil things.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we're sort of working through this together, I don't want to lay upon you a heavy burden, but rather free you up, hopefully, by helping all of us to see the ways in which God wants us to be living so that we can put our energy and our effort into that and not into the things that don't matter.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is God's will for us, is to be people who are not marked by hypocrisy, but by faithfulness to Him, not apathetic but dedicated to His will.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: God, it's um it's hard to look at our lives and recognize the fact that we're not living up to your commands.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, there are a whole lot of reasons why that might be the case.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are reasons that you understand, Lord, because they're hard.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And some of them are just excuses.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, you've drawn us into this deeper place.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I ask that you would help us by the power of your spirit to carry out your will to the best of our abilities.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: God, to be good examples of Jesus to those around us.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: That they wouldn't look at us and see us as hypocrites.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: God, but they would see that we are trying our best as we are imperfect, trying to live out a perfect plan, Lord.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: That they would see we are doing our best to honor you with our lives.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: God, please help us to walk forward in balance between conviction and grace.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not allowing, uh please don't allow us to fall to one side or the other.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But God, to just walk forward with this healthy perspective on what you've called us to and the grace that you've given us when we fail.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we love you and we thank you.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's in Jesus' name that we pray.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.