How To Combat Spiritual Apathy

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The last book in the Old Testament.

Malachi is a book in the Old Testament that records authentic, gut-wrenching dialogue between God and his people.

Throughout the book, we hear different questions rising from the people, which serve to remind us that we aren't the first ones to learn.

Asking a question is the easy part.

It's living with the answer that shapes us from one.

Some of the questions that rise from the text include: how has God loved us?

What did we do wrong that got us in this place?

Has God given up on us?

If God really loves us, then why are we suffering?

And what do we do now when we don't know what we did in the first place?

From these questions, we will think about topics like love, divorce, money, worship, disobedience, and forgiveness.

He also points out the uniqueness of God's name and the respect it deserves, the sanctity of the marriage commandment, and the contact of God with all our heart.

Religious rituals void of any meaning, and simply a check-up box won't meet the relational requirements of divine love.

In the end, when Jesus returns, the righteous and the wicked will be clearly distinguished from one another.

But in the meantime, God is working to turn our hearts back towards one another, both horizontally and vertically.

Now, actually, uh, I want you to know one of our students did that.

Yes.

Yes.

We believe that the church is full of gifted people.

Uh her name is Ashlyn Daly.

I think she's here somewhere.

I won't embarrass her, but I want you to know that we believe in your priesthood.

And so I reached out to her back in May and said, Hey, I know you do animation.

So if I was a girl and I was, I mean, a guy, excuse me, and I was looking to ask a girl out in a creative way, I'd break off some channel to Ashland and say, How about a little animation video?

But anyway, uh, summarizes the book of Malachi perfectly because here's what's happened, okay?

In the book of Malachi, God's people have been in bondage, they've been in captivity, they get out and they go back, the temple's rebuilt, and things are not quite like they think they are.

So they start kind of spiritually pouting and asking God all these questions.

And they think we're gonna ask God question after question after question after question, and eventually God's gonna wear down and God's gonna see things our way.

Well, here's the thing.

Now, by the way, you if you've been to this church twice, you realize that we love asking questions, not in a disrespectful way, but in a very exploratory way.

Like at the end of the sermon this morning, questions come up on the screen, and then we'll gather in community groups tonight and we'll process these questions out loud with each other, okay?

Uh uh, but but in the book of Malachi, they thought we can just keep asking questions and we're gonna wear God down until God sees things the way we see things.

But the Bible says this: that God's ways are higher than our ways, and God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

And so when you ask God a question, he doesn't mind, but be prepared to live with the answer.

Does that make sense?

Say amen.

Or as I like to say, God's like a buffet.

Take all you want, but be prepared to eat all you take.

No?

No?

Yeah?

Okay.

So uh last week Brent kicked us off.

This week I'll start reading in chapter six, um, in chapter one, verse six to verse 14.

I want to talk to you about how to combat spiritual apathy.

How to combat, because this is what happens.

The people just kind of lethargic.

Here's how you know you got spiritual apathy.

You wake up on Sunday morning and you look at your wife and say, Are we going to church today?

That's the that's the clearest indication of like, wah, won't.

And we're all gonna be there.

You're gonna go through periods where it's like, hey, I'm really feeling it.

And then there's gonna be periods where I got nothing.

I can't feel a thing, okay?

So we can learn from these people in the Old Testament.

Let me voice a prayer and we'll dig in.

Let's pray together.

God, thanks for your word, thanks that it's a truth, it's a lamp unto our feet, and it's a light unto our path, it is illumination and it is direction.

So, Lord, shine the light of your word, the the revelation of God upon our lives this morning so we can see clearly about the next step, but also remind us that there's a destination.

We're going somewhere.

We're not just, this isn't just busy work, a substitute teacher gives us because the real teacher's not here.

No, you are always inviting us into something.

And so give us ears to hear and eyes to see this morning what you're saying to us.

We want to escape the gravitational pull, the cultural draw of spiritual apathy.

And so, Lord, set us free today.

We pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

Here's the last thing I want to say about spiritual apathy.

You you you get out of spiritual apathy not through effort, but through understanding.

Not through effort.

Oh, do this and do this, and but through understanding, okay?

And there's four things that God wants us to understand from the text.

Let me read it, and and and then I'll point to them.

Malachi chapter one, verse six.

God says this a son honors his father, and a servant is master.

If then I am a father, where is my honor?

If I'm a master, where is my fear?

says the Lord of hosts.

O priests who despise my name, but you say, How have we despised your name?

By offering polluted food upon my altar, but you say, How we polluted you, by saying that the Lord's table may be despised.

When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil?

Present that to your governor.

Will he accept you or show you favor, says the Lord of hosts?

And now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us with such a gift from your hand?

Will he show favor to any of you, says the Lord of hosts?

Oh, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered up to my name and a pure offering.

For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.

But you profane it when you say that the Lord's table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food, may be despised.

But you say, What a weariness this is! And you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts.

You bring what has been taken by violence, or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering.

Shall I accept that from your hand, says the Lord?

Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished.

For I am a great king, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

If you're going to lunch today, men, I just want to encourage you to say that before your family praise.

Just look at your kids and say, For I am a great king, and my name will be feared among the nations.

Yes, yeah.

And be prepared for your kids to go, I'm gonna eat in the suburban.

There are things in the Bible that only God can say and mean, and we agree with because uh that that's one of them.

He says, For I am a great king and my name will be feared among the nations.

There's things that the Bible says that can only, they're only befitting of God.

No one else can say those.

Everybody in the room rolling their eyes, like, really, dude, get over yourself, all right?

You don't have that many followers on the gram.

Uh, but how do you escape spiritual apathy?

There's four things I want to point to in the text.

The first one is this is that God takes himself very seriously.

God takes himself very seriously.

It's verse six and seven.

Now, when you ask God a question, be prepared to live with the answer and the ramifications of the answer, because this is what the book of Malachi is.

Uh, I told you that they think they can just keep asking questions until they wear God down.

It started in chapter one.

Uh I mean, excuse me, earlier in the chapter in verse two, and they started off and God says, I've loved you, says the Lord, but you say, How have you loved us?

Listen to God's response.

Because God's thought about this on a level we're not we're not normally thinking about it.

He says, Again, God says, I've loved you, says the Lord, uh, but you say, How have you loved us?

This is God's response to that simple question.

Is not Esau Jacob's brother, declares the Lord, yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau have hated.

I've laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.

If Edom says, We are shattered, but we will rebuild the ruins, the Lord of hosts says, They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.

Now, why is this a big deal when you ask God a question?

You know, hey, how have you loved us?

And God says, I don't mind answering that.

And he brings up Jacob and Esau.

Why does he bring up Jacob and Esau for one simple reason?

God establishes this thing.

He says, I hated Esau.

I have always hated Esau, and I will not allow his descendants to flourish.

I tore their city down and they go, they're called the Edomites.

And he says, if Edom rebuilds, if they get t-shirts and they put Edom strong on them, and we're gonna rebuild our city after the hurricane of God came through.

God says, I'm gonna tear it down again.

Now, here's why.

Listen very carefully, students.

God is not morally or contractually obligated to love everybody.

Now think about that for a minute.

Because, see, here's one of the reasons you say to people nowadays on the street, hey man, God loves you.

Yeah, I know.

It's lost its wonder, it's lost its awe, it no longer buckles our knees like oh my gosh.

It's like, yeah, God's contractually obligated to love everybody.

Then how do you explain Esau?

Now, by the way, the people, again, ask whatever question you want of God, but be prepared for God to answer in a way that has ramifications for you.

They said, How have you loved us?

And God says, uh, I loved you like I've hated Esau, consistently, forever, and with demonstratable consequence in your life.

Now that may be like, oh man, ah, this fills the love of God with its proper wonder because once you realize that he could have hated you, but he chose to love you, and by the way, he could have hated you and still been loving God because God's nature is so vast they can never be defined by one person's experience of him.

And so this fills the love of God with this proper wonder.

And it's like, oh my gosh, I never want to get over this.

And so ask your question, but be prepared for God's answer.

And it's probably going to be deeper and more jagged and consequential than you're ready for.

But also prepare for God to ask questions back, which is where we jump in this morning in verse six.

We see here how seriously God takes himself when he asks this simple question: where is the honor if I am a father and a servant is master?

If a son honors his father and a servant is master, then if I am a father, where is my honor?

This is the question that God responds to these people.

Where is my honor?

They think they're putting God on trial, and God says, Brace yourself.

I just asked you a question.

If I'm a father, where is my honor?

That word honor is the Hebrew word.

The Old Testament was originally recorded in Hebrew.

It's the Hebrew word kabod, and it simply means wait.

Wait.

What God is saying is you can have a lot of weightless relationships, you can have a lot of friends you're in algebra with, you can have buddies that you go to lunch with from work, okay?

But when it comes to me, there's a mass and a weight and a thickness to my being that you don't find anywhere else.

And so let that inform the way you come at me, okay?

Because if I'm a father, where is the weight that shows up in the way you approach me?

And it it and then he says this word fear.

It's not this, oh, oh, I'm afraid servile fear, the fear of a servant.

It's this filial fear, this fear of a son or daughter who's afraid they're gonna miss out on some morsel of goodness that their father intends for them.

There's this weight.

And so ask yourself this question: what is the most weighty relationship in your life right now?

Like I see a couple, uh, I'm gonna say probably three months now.

They don't go to our church and they're like, hey, you can tell our story because when we first came to see you, we didn't like our first session.

And I said, That's okay.

When you left, I wasn't very hopeful for your marriage, so we're on the same place.

This is why I'm not a counselor, I'm a pastor.

I get to tell the truth.

Uh, and here's why.

Because when they walked in, and I said, Hey, I don't know you by the way, my name is Neil.

The guy introduced himself, and then he went to he gestured to his wife and he said, This is she who must be obeyed.

And I was like, Oh, what's your real name?

And she said, That'll do.

And I was like, Hey, by the way, men, when you live in fear of your wife, you send her the message that the rest of the world's gonna fear her, and we aren't.

We're just not, and that's not like a contest.

You're like, Oh, Pastor Assassin, no, it's just like, really?

And she's all got her arms folded, and and because basically what happened in the first session was just kind of like, just tell me why you're here.

We kind of don't communicate, we're drifting apart.

We're just like, hey, should we just split the sheets and split the resources?

And he said, You know, I I've done really well, and my family's got money, so I could just write her a check and be done, and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm just thinking, where's the weight that keeps the ship from tipping over?

So the second session made a little progress, third session.

I and he said again, he looked at her and said, She must be obeyed.

And I said, Do you realize that you appease your wife like she's God and that's idolatry?

And she goes, I don't have a problem with it.

I said, That's great, but I didn't ask you.

I asked him.

See, once again, men, when you when you appeal, it's like his wife's a volcano, he just throws a goat in her every day so she doesn't erupt on him.

And I'm just like, This is this is idolatry.

And I said, one of the structural problems in your marriage is that the weightiest relationship in your life is your wife.

I love my wife, but she's not the weightiest relationship in my life.

She doesn't have a thickness of being like God does.

And so I said to him, I said, as long as you fear your wife the way you were created to fear God, she will not respect you.

And she falls out of respect before she falls out of love.

And all of a sudden she unfolds her arm and says, Say that again.

I said, I promise you, you don't respect this man.

You fall out of respect.

A woman falls out of respect before she falls out of love.

And so, you stop respecting him somewhere along the way.

And he said, Well, she gets her kitchen, she's got a kitchen remote, and she gets a new vehicle about every three or four years.

I said, Great, you're just throwing a goat in the volcano.

You're appeasing her, you're not loving her.

Because she should be transformed by the way you love her.

And he's like, I don't think I understand what you say.

And then by the way, I'm not mad at this man.

I'm not making this is why he said, Please tell our story.

Oh my gosh, this is revolutionary.

I'm like, that's a big word.

Let's all get crazy, okay?

Because basically, here's the problem: we assign weight to the wrong people.

Like, I wish, I pray this prayer every once in a while, student.

I wish to God and his son Jesus I could go back and be in the ninth grade right now, knowing what I know now.

Woo! I would be slapping some fools every day.

No, you just you think that's just me.

Not that we want to, but how many of you wish you knew in the ninth grade what you know now?

Say amen.

Wouldn't it be so different?

Say amen.

Yes.

It would just be like you'd look at people and go, listen, you're gonna amount to nothing, so I don't care what you think about me.

It would be so liberating.

You're just fired by squishy or swing glass.

Go ahead.

You're gonna be unemployed in two years, teacher.

Anyway, God, back to God.

Shh, God takes himself seriously.

It's what you see in here when God says, Hey, if I'm a father, where is the honor?

Why don't you understand that there's a thickness to my being and my nature?

God takes himself very seriously.

His again, ask yourself, what is the most weighted relationship in my life right now?

And if the answer is not God, then you're making an idol out of whoever the answer is.

If it's your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your best friend or whatever, if it's anything but God is idolatry.

Here's the second thing we see in the text.

Spiritual apathy is the state of not taking God seriously.

It is the state of not taking God seriously.

And where does this show up in verse 7 when they say, by saying that the Lord's table may be despised?

By saying, the priest, by the way, you should expect more from preachers.

You should accept preachers.

I mean, regardless of what happens, they're gonna stand their ground, look you in the eye, and lovingly tell you that's wrong.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

But what happened was the priests were like the people, the priests were kind of like having a little pity party, like, you know, this is not going like we thought it would.

And we think we deserve so.

So the people would come and the priests would lower the standard of God.

And they would allow the people, they would say to the people, the Lord's table may be despised.

The word despise there means to hold in contempt, to treat as lacking value or worthless.

It's uh remember Jacob and Esau from earlier.

We'll just stay on that scene.

Jacob and Esau were brothers.

Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stewed meat.

His brother Jacob's name means sneak or deceiver.

And he was cooking some food, and his brother came in from the field, he knew he was hungry, and he said, What is that?

And he said, Oh, this is delicious stewed meat.

He goes, Hey, give me something.

He said, Give me your birthright.

In other words, let me be the firstborn in our father's eyes.

And his brother Esau, he didn't value the birthright, and she said, sure.

And so he sold his birthright for a bowl of meat soup.

He despised it.

He didn't hold it in high esteem.

Is there anything that you should esteem and respect more, but you kind of despise it?

Because here's what happens here is these people despise this.

And so spiritual apathy begins to set in.

And by the way, it's not like boom, an overnight process.

There's a slow, gradual slide into spiritual apathy.

Let me describe the steps.

Number one is quitting.

People quit something that was spiritually formative, something that had uh the moral retention over their life.

Ask yourself, have I stopped doing something in the past six months that I used to do that was helpful to me spiritually?

Quitting.

Secondly, experience.

I never had they look around and go, I never had the experience that other people talk about.

I'm not experiencing something here.

Thirdly, is knowledge.

They don't take the time to learn the faith.

Notice not my faith, but the faith.

Before Christianity is personal, it is historical.

And then it got starts getting personal.

Fourth step is indifference.

I don't care and it doesn't bother me.

I don't care and it doesn't bother me.

I mean, they will plunge.

You got a 15-year-old that will plunge for three hours on TikTok and say, I can't read the Bible, it just it doesn't hold my attention.

Uh fourth is a cowlous.

Spiritual apathy, you're just getting a slide, you're callous.

You can't feel things like you once did.

It's not that I don't want to feel those things.

I can't feel these things.

I mean, every once in a while I have a pang of guilt and I want to feel something, I can't.

Why?

Because my heart has been calloused.

Next step is just comparison.

We look at others who seem to be flourishing without caring about God.

You look at your neighbor, dad, who's like, hey, I go to church every Sunday, I go to Wednesday night, I'm involved in a D group, and my neighbor's got a nice boat, got a nice bay boat and a new truck, and he sleeps in every Sunday.

What am I doing this for?

It's comparison.

And then lastly is avoidance.

I begin to avoid things I once enjoyed, and I enjoy things I once avoided.

And it's just a slow, gradual slide.

Third thing we see in the text.

So you need to understand because the way you combat spiritual apathy is not through effort, it's through understanding.

Third thing you need to understand from the text is that God expects his people to take him seriously as well.

It's verses 8 to 10.

What does God say there?

He says, When you offer blind animals and sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil?

Present that to Greg Abbott.

Will he accept you or show you favor, says the Lord of hosts?

And now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us with such a gift from your hand?

Will he show favor to any of you, says the Lord of hosts?

And then God says this.

It's why there's a picture of these ancient doors behind me.

God says to the priests, to the preachers of the day, Oh, that one of you had some moral courage or some spiritual backbone, and you would get up and you would shut the doors of the temple so these people would not come and light these useless fires on my altar.

If you grew up or you were told growing up, oh God just takes anything, so just do what you can.

You were lied to.

And God says, you know what?

I'd rather you just shut the doors.

I would rather you close some churches in America than to get up and preach a gospel.

It's no gospel at all.

This is how soberly God thinks about when his people gather and what they do.

And I say God expects his people to take him seriously as well.

And by the way, look at me.

That doesn't mean you walk around like some like some joyless, you know, oh, I'm being serious.

No, no, no, no.

You can take God seriously and be the most whimsical person in the room.

So don't get it twisted.

But here's what I'm saying: our lives are a reflection of what we believe about God because our beliefs about God are manifested in our behavior.

Our lives are a reflection of what we believe about God.

Because our our our beliefs about God are manifested in our behavior, by how we live.

If you want to see just an example of this, I'll just stay on Jacob and Esau.

Jacob and Esau were brothers, okay?

Now, Jacob, after he sold, I mean, Esau sold his birthright to his brother.

Then his brother went to his father, their father, and stole the blessing.

Esau's brother was a hairy little man.

And so Jacob figured out, hey, my dad's dying, he can't see.

He puts on the animal skins, prepares a meal for his dad, and goes in.

And he says, Would you give me the blessing?

And the dad says, Well, your voice sounds like Jacob.

Come here though.

And he touches his skin.

He's got these animal skins.

He says, But you're you're hairy like Esau, so I guess you're really Esau.

And he gives him the blessing.

Now Jacob takes off, flees from his brother because he knows he's deceived him.

He cheated him.

And he goes off and he meets a guy named uh Laban.

And Laban has two sisters, two daughters, Rachel and Leah.

And by the way, the Bible's Says what goes around comes around.

It says it like this in Proverbs 6: Roll a stone and be hit with it.

The deceiver gets deceived.

He falls in love with this one girl and he says, Hey, I'm gonna work seven years.

And on his way, now he lifts the veil.

Uh-oh, it's her sister.

That's not creepy.

And God's just kind of winking at him thinking, hey son, you've thought your whole life you're smarter than me.

And so he works another seven years to get the girl that he wants.

But eventually his brother-in-law is like, dude, he's making all this cash we could be making.

They go to their dad, the dad says, You gotta go.

He has to go back and face his brother Esau.

Look at me.

Remember this.

There will come a day, it is the best and worst day of your life when all of your lies get in the same room.

And he's facing his brother.

And so what does he do?

Again, this is what I'm trying to say.

God expects his people to take him seriously.

Look how seriously Jacob takes facing his brother, who he's deceived and he's cheated money out of.

He he seeks, he sets out to appease his brother.

This is how the Bible talks about it.

Genesis 32, verse 13.

Genesis 32:13

So he stayed there that night, and from what he had with him, he took a present for his brother Esau.

200 female goats, 20 male goats, 200 ewes, that's baby lambs, 20 rams, 30 milking camels and their calves, 40 cows, and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys, and 10 male donkeys.

These he handed over to his servants, every drove by itself, and he said to his servants, Pass on ahead of me and put a space between drove and drove.

He instructed the first when Esau, my brother, meets you and asks you, To whom do you belong?

Where are you going?

And whose are these ahead of you?

Then you shall say, They belong to your servant Jacob, and they are a present sent to my Lord Esau.

And moreover, he is behind us.

So it's three waves, 580 animals, and it's just his brother.

It's not even God.

He's so fearful.

He's trying to appease his brother by sending wave upon waves of these offerings.

And all of his servants are like, oh, by the way, he is behind us.

He's coming.

This is appeasement, but it's also acknowledgement.

Now let me be clear.

We don't have to appease God because Jesus was sacrificed once for all.

But we do have to acknowledge him.

It's a big deal when you sin against God.

And so when God says, take my take take me seriously.

They despised the Lord's table.

Who did that?

The priest did.

They said that the Lord's table made me despised.

Who did they say that to?

To the people.

And so the priests give the people permission that God never does.

And in so doing, they rob them of the power of obedience.

Okay?

And here's why this is a big deal.

The priests only offered what the people brought them.

So what's happened on a grander scale is that the people are insulting the nature of God by uh by minimizing the nature of their sin.

And then they are minimizing the necessity of the offering.

Did you hear that?

Now again, the Bible always invites us to think on a bigger level because it's easy to go, Malachi, hmm, that's that's that part of the Bible where homeschoolers get names for their kids.

I don't want to read that ever again.

Uh back there by Malachi and Zechariah and Zephaniah, that's my two brothers.

No.

Malachi, look at me.

Because these these the minor prophets they're called at the end of the Old Testament, they sound like God's angry.

People aren't listening because God's raising his voice.

He's getting after them.

But look at me.

The only thing worse than God getting after you is God stopping talking.

And this is what happens at the end of Malachi.

And there's 400 to 440 years of silence between the Old and New Testament.

Big deal.

And everything in the Old Testament is intended to get God's people ready for who is to come in the New Testament.

And so the people on a grand scale, they insult the nature of God by minimizing the nature of their sin.

And then they insult the necessity of the offering.

And you say, why is this a big deal?

When the offering doesn't matter, what you're saying is that sin doesn't matter.

And what you're and you're saying this to a God who will one day sacrifice his son for your sin.

You see, it all comes together in this moment.

And God has always understood this.

This is why God says, Oh, that one of you preachers would have the moral courage to shut the doors so you don't come down here and just go through these empty rituals.

You think this is what I want?

You think that what this is about?

By the way, what they were despising was a big deal because despising the offerings, in despising the offerings, three things were happening.

Number one, presence.

People in the Old Testament, an offering is what allows sinful people to be in God's presence.

They had to appease the holy God.

Secondly, forgiveness.

People made offerings to cover their sin.

And by despising their offerings, they were despising their means of forgiveness.

Translation, they were saying, I'm not that bad.

I know you say bring a pure animal and sacrifice it, but I got a three-legged lamb with a bad eye, that'll do.

No one wants that.

And God says, I don't want that.

Who do you think I am?

Some crooked politician that takes a little grease palm out the back door?

No, I don't want that.

But here's the last thing that's happening.

The offerings were a visible sign of the Christ who was to come.

And so what happens is after Malachi, some of the 400 words of silence and some of the first words spoken publicly about Jesus were out of the mouth of John the Baptist.

So when he saw Jesus, he was like, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

Translation no more sacrifice for sin.

He didn't, he's not coming to cover sin, he's coming to take sin away.

And so the Old Testament sacrificial system was to get God's people ready, to get you and I ready to think rightly about our sin and what Jesus has done about it.

Here's the fourth thing you need to understand to break this spell of spiritual apathy over you is simply this.

Then starts now, and there begins here.

I'll say it for you.

Huh?

Let me say it again.

Then starts now, and there begins here.

It starts in verse 11 to verse 16.

There's this future tense.

God says, Well, my name will be great among the nations.

And everywhere incense is offered, you know, will be offered to my name.

We'll be, will be, will be.

Verse 11 starts with four, which is just because.

Now he he gets after them verses eight to ten of verse 11.

He says, Because from the right, here's why I'm getting after you.

Not that I'm just an angry deity that likes yelling at people, he said, because from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name will be great among the nations.

This unchangeable reality will happen.

And because of that, you people have to change.

It's not enough to say that my name will be great among the nations if my name is not great right now among the people who should be consumed with my greatness.

This is what God is saying.

I'm not contending for you to say, yeah, yeah, one day out there to these people, the 1040 window, and in Romania and Portland, Oregon, and wherever else we got mission partners.

Yeah, God, your name's gonna be great.

God says, My name needs to be great among my people right now.

This is what God is bothered by, because our lives are a reflection of what we believe about God.

We want that as a nation, we want that as a church, but do you want that as an individual?

God is saying, Hey, to his people, my name is going to be great among the nations.

And anywhere incense will be offered to my name, but now my name is not great right here, right now, among my people.

So something has to change.

And I would just close by saying this to you today.

Never be content to hold as an idea what God intended to be your experience.

Let me say that again.

If you write anything down, just write this down.

Never be content to hold as an idea what God intended to be your experience.

Because when you read the Bible, it's easy to go, man, what's God saying?

And that's a great way to think about it.

Another way to think about it, more intimate, is this what is God inviting me to?

What is God inviting me to?

And what God is inviting his people to, and what God is inviting you and I to is greatness.

God says, My name's going to be great among the nation.

And you can talk about that, and you can say, God, we want that.

And you can say, Oh, well, I want my name to be great among our nation, and that's a great thing.

And you can say, God, we want your name to be great.

We want you to be great in our church.

That's a great thing.

But how many of you are willing to put your finger on your chest and say, God, be great here?

Be great right here.

Be great right here.

God, I'm in the tenth grade and I don't have as many friends as I thought I'd have.

They told me when I was in the second grade of vacation Bible school that you love Jesus, your friends will love Jesus.

God, my friends don't love Jesus.

And this is lonely.

And I'm looking around, kind of thinking, I might want to just sin so I can fit in.

And maybe you just gotta lay in your bed tonight and put your finger on your chest and say, God, be great here.

Be great here.

I want you to be great among the nations.

But I also understand that then starts now and there begins right here.

So here's what I'm asking all of us to do every day this week, multiple times during the day, as many times as you need to.

I did it this morning, laid in my bed.

Before I got out of bed and got my coffee, that was early.

Somebody saw me this morning and I said, Why are you wearing that that that that pearl snap shirt?

Because God loves pearl snap.

Any questions?

No, because I'm old.

I get up early.

When I got up this morning, it was dark and it was cold outside.

Now I walk out of this building, me nine degrees.

I'll melt on the way home.

But that's okay.

I laid in my bed before I got and got out and got coffee.

And I just said, God, be great right here.

Be great.

Be great in my church.

Be great in my country.

Be great in the nations.

But be great right here.

And it's all I want you to do this week is just put your finger on your chest and just say to God, be great here.

Be great here.

Be great right here.

I just I don't want you to be great in the nations, not be great in me, because I I'm in algebra class, so people that aren't gonna understand your greatness.

And that's a reflection on me, God.

I work on a work project in a work group, a project group at Word, God, and we're on a we got a big rig we're working on.

And God, I want you to be great right here.

God, I'm working on big acquisition and mergers.

I have a friend that's a lawyer and acquisition mergers, and I'm just like, what?

He goes, I'm the guy that reads the fine print.

And we put stuff in there.

So I said, guess what they want?

I tell him, put your finger on your chest and say, God, be great here.

Be great here.

Now, why do I say that?

Look at me and we're done.

Because God created you for greatness.

That's why.

He didn't create you to just kind of scuff through and be like, ah, I barely made it.

I got into hell with the smell of smoke on me.

No.

God's angry at these people.

That's why he says, close the doors, you knuckleheads.

Why?

Because you're contending for my name to be great among the nations.

But you don't want me to be great right here.

I can't live with this, God says.

Why should you?

Be great here.

That's not arrogance.

That's identity.

Be great right here, God.

Be great right here.

Why?

Because God created you and I for greatness.

That's why.

Let's pray together.

Just take a moment, if you will, and think about what the Lord said to you today.

A voice of prayer, some questions come up on the screen for us just to take a moment to think about.

God is not just like some benevolent grandpa.

They'll just take whatever you're willing to do.

He has standards and they will not be lowered.

Because God knows what you're capable of, but he also knows what we'll settle for.

So, Holy Spirit, just come and brood over us.

We want you to be great among the nations.

We believe your name will be great among the nations.

We want your name to be great in our nation.

We want your name to be great in our church, but we want you to be great right here first.

So that our lives are telling the correct story about God.

So, Lord, just kind of let us feel the weight of your being, the thickness of your nature for just a moment.

Settle in on us, God, not to punish, but to purge, to displace anybody and anything that shouldn't be in us.

God cause us to wonder today if you brought the thickness of your being, the weight of your glory to bear on us, what would be the first thing that would be displaced, that would be forced out because it's not necessary nor needed.

There's a weight to your being, and you bring it to bear on us to displace all the less wild lovers, all the lesser things that we settle for.

And we just ask you as your children to bring that to bear on us even now, Lord.

Just just name it, Holy Spirit.

Say, I I I would I the weight of me would cause that to go.

Because that's not great.

That's not gonna make you great, and I create you for greatness.

Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you're uh you're always alluringly calling out to us.

Lord, we're humbled and we're grateful.

We say thank you in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

But if you're our guest today, I want to say thanks for being here.

You're always welcome.

If you have any questions about anything you saw or heard, some of our pastors will be available down front.

Uh, when you're dismissed here in a minute, we'd love to answer any questions.

Pray with you if you got anything going on.

Uh, there's a number on the screen behind me.

You just text that number, we have a record of your visit.

Uh, we'll reach out to you.

Uh, we'll respect your privacy, but we want, we we believe you matter to God, and so you matter to us.

We want to help you take your next step, okay?

Uh, for some of you, today's the day you worship God when it comes to giving through obedience or generosity.

We have wooden boxes by the doors where we receive our offering.

Uh, most people give online these days, but some people still give in person, and we're great with that, okay?

We have other things going on in the life our church wants you to know about, and so we have video announcements, so give your attention to the screens for just a minute.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

If you're new, text welcome to 281-626-5707.

This way we can know you're here and get you connected with the church.

Today is a community group Sunday.

We'd love for you to join us tonight as we discuss the sermon.

Find out more at grandparkway.org.

Men's Weekend registration is happening now in the lobby and online.

The deadline to register is next Sunday.

We've officially released our church app.

This is a tool to help you stay informed and stay connected to what's happening at the church.

As you use the app, you can register for events, give, watch sermons, and more.

To get the app, head to your app store and search Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

If you're interested in singing in our next adult choir, email Clyde at grandparkway.org.

If there's any questions about what you heard today, or you would like someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

I have one other announcement that was not in the video.

This was announced this morning uh in the warehouse to our students, but uh Cheyenne Burge, who is our associate student pastor, has served in that capacity for almost three years.

Uh, she has informed us recently that she is pregnant.

Uh yes, yes.

Uh that is the good news.

Uh they're expecting a little boy in March.

Uh, so be praying for her in Tyler.

Uh, the sad news for us is that she is going to be stepping down from her role as the associate student pastor to be a mom.

She said, I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.

Uh, we practice full disclosure, and so in the name of full disclosure, she did come to us as elders and say, Hey, would you all consider when she was trying to figure out what she wanted to do?

She said, Would y'all consider you let me work from home and this being a part-time role, work from home some?

And we sat with that, we prayed through that, and as elders, uh, we declined that request for three reasons, okay?

And by the way, none of these are about the person Cheyenne.

We love Cheyenne, they're about the position of the associate student pastor.

But three reasons.

Number one, we believe that ministry is by nature incarnational, it's life on life.

Uh, and that's hard to do when you have a baby.

You just had a baby at home.

I've never had a baby, but it looks tiring.

Uh, and so uh that's the main reason.

It's just the nature of ministry, it is incarnational.

It's going to games, it's getting yogurt, it's getting coffee.

It's it's secondly, it's collaborative.

This person collaborates with Ian, our student pastor, and the rest of our staff.

Uh, and that's difficult to do if you you're at home or trying to juggle all these schedules.

And then thirdly, it's precedent.

Precedent being, what do you mean?

Chris Sedgwick, who served as our um interim student pastor, did a great job, stepped in.

Chris, we got ready.

Hey, we're gonna start looking seriously.

He said, Would y'all consider making my role part-time?

I think I can do it part-time.

Again, nothing about Chris.

We just said, no, we want a full-time youth pastor.

We believe that you're called a logo, so we bless that.

And so, what we were not willing to do is say, oh, the guy needs to be full-time, but the woman that works with girls, she can be part-time.

It sends the wrong message to our girls.

So we want two people, a man and a woman, full-time in this role, fully engaging the student culture in Fort Bean County.

That's why we said, Cheyenne, we love you, but we we're not gonna do that.

And so uh, if you have any questions about that, we practice full disclosure.

Some of you are like, that's more than I wanted to know.

Uh uh, and the reason we do that is that hey, we just put it out there.

We love Cheyenne, nothing to do with the person Cheyenne, everything to do with the position, okay?

Uh, so we said, hey, can we be done at the end of the year?

Because I said, if it was me, I wouldn't work up to my due date.

I would take some time.

And she said, come back and said, you know what?

The end of the year is kind of crazy.

My students are out.

She loves our students.

She said, I'd like to have a few normal Sundays.

Can I stay till January the 8th?

Absolutely.

So our last Sunday with us will be January the 8th, okay?

So you got plenty of time.

I'm sure Shine is here.

Shine, where are you?

Right here.

Stand up.

Yes.

Oh.

I'm gonna ask if you and Tyler would be available down front because people will ask you questions, and somebody will come up because y'all can't help yourself, you church people.

I just gave you more information than necessary.

Some of y'all will come up and go, what's really going on?

And when they do, Cheyenne, you get my permission just to punch them in the throat.

It won't kill them or anything, it just breaks that cartilage ring right there.

Uh I've heard.

Anyway.

Uh hey, and and we don't, we we told them we're gonna get busy looking, but today we're gonna be sad for us and excited for Tyler and Cheyenne.

All right?

So, stand on your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

He didn't have to love you, he could have hated you.

Still been a loving God.

But he chose to love you.

You're not always lovable, but he's never gonna stop loving you because this is covenant love.

So you have to learn to be men and women and students and young people who are forever, eternally, unchangeably loved by God.

Depart now and take a nap in the warm sufficiency of this reality.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.