The Problem of Passivity | Chuck Hetzler

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there.

We are so glad that you are in our lives and that you're with

us today. And our moms are amazing in 1000

different ways. I want to tell you a story about

my mom. So my mom was the executive

director for the Advocacy Network for Children, which is a

nonprofit that helps kids who are victims of abuse.

She got to do this for 18 years and got to help hundreds and

hundreds of kids. But when she was 63 years young,

she decided to go back to college.

She went back so she could get her masters because she wanted

to do more work to help parents. See, she didn't stop caring

about kids. In fact, she realized that the

very opposite was true, that she could help more kids in the

future if she not only treated the outcomes of abuse, but

targeted the source of it. And in the same way, today as we

wrap up this sermon series on marriage in the family, I want

to say that I'm speaking primarily to moms and dads, to

husbands and wives, because your marriage is the foundation for

your family and your family is the foundation for your kids,

and your kids are the foundation for the future.

I want to welcome all twelve of our locations, those joining

online and inside. We are so glad that you're with

us. And I'm so thankful to be a part

of this church, and I hope you are too.

That's doing everything that we can in this region to try to

help people find an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ. He is awesome and there is power

in his name. And I pray that you meet him

today, if you haven't already. And if you're new here, we love

it that you're with us. And we'd ask you to stop by the

new Hero booth at the conclusion of the service so that we can

meet you. So if you haven't been with us,

we are wrapping up a sermon series called Lovers and

Landmines, trying to help families in our church and in

our region to navigate the difficulties that come along

with life in proximity with one another.

And today, in this final sermon, I'm not going to add any

landmines to the list of things to avoid, to watch out for.

Instead, this sermon is a call to action.

Tell your neighbors. Say get ready.

Tell your other neighbor he's talking to you in this message.

It's a challenge for all of us to adopt A certain kind of

mindset, a mindset that will successfully lead us through the

minefield and on the other side, leave a legacy of faith for

generations to come. Are you ready?

So you're a soldier. You've got a land.

You've got a field full of land mines in front of you.

You've been trained how to recognize these hidden

explosives. So how do you start to go

through the land, through the minefield?

You don't run. You know that that wouldn't be

smart. You don't get distracted with

other things, and you don't assume that you're safe just

because nothing has exploded yet.

You're always on the ready. Every step is calculated, every

movement is intentional. But what is going to kill you in

a man, in a in a landmine field is when you get careless, when

you lose that sense of urgency and you get distracted with

other things. Your actions get reckless and

even your passion for making it through the minefield fades

away. And what I want to suggest to

you today is that the greatest threat to your family is not the

land mines themselves, but it's your tendency to become passive.

It's the problem of passivity. I want to paint a picture for

you, but of what passivity looks like.

And I'm going to do it starting with Proverbs chapter 31, one

Proverbs 31 · chapter mention

and two. I'm going to read these two

verses to you. And at first it might sound

like, wait, what? I'm not following it, so just

follow with me, OK? It says the sayings of King

Lemuel, an inspired utterance his mother taught him.

Listen, my son. Listen, son of my womb.

Listen my son to the answer to my prayers.

So why did I pick these verses to start out with?

To talk about the problem of passivity in our homes, well,

it's Mother's Day and we all know the incredible role that

moms played in our lives. And without them, we would not

be the people who we are today. But look at this verse here.

If you don't know the book of Proverbs where this comes from,

let me tell you a little bit about it.

Proverbs is a whole book of wisdom.

It's just wise saying after wise saying about how to live a godly

life. And it was written by King

Solomon. If you don't know about King

Solomon, he was the wisest person to live because God had

given him a supernatural gift of wisdom.

Not only that, he was also the greatest king to ever live.

He was this, he was the king after David, but in terms of the

expanse of his empire, he was the most powerful king in

Israel's history. So here you have the most

powerful king and you have the wisest king.

And he ends his book. He caps off his book on wisdom

saying it all comes down to what my Mama taught me and what did

his mom teach him? Started with grabbing him by the

shoulders and saying Son, my son whom I love, my son whom I

prayed for. Listen to me, listen to me,

listen to me. Why did she have to say?

Why is God saying to us? Listen, listen, listen, moms,

you could preach this part of the sermon because you know that

unless we really get your attention and you're going to

miss it. And God knows that.

Just like Tyler mentioned last week when he talked about the

role of parents in the four to 14 years, he said dads are

especially prone to be apathetic, to be careless, to be

passive. And so God is saying listen,

listen, listen. And guys, we're the ones who are

most prone to be passive, aren't we?

We're the ones who say I'm good, I got this.

We're the ones who say I don't need to ask for directions,

honey, I know we'll get there. And guys, right now, I know that

you're probably sitting there thinking I'm good, my family's

good. I don't need help navigating

this minefield. Like I'm doing pretty good.

My marriage is pretty good, my faith is pretty good.

My kids, they're just fine. This isn't that big a deal.

But God is grabbing us by the shoulders and he's saying, come

on, listen, listen, listen. God has had you here.

You've been hearing these sermon, these sermons on how you

need to be a leader in your family.

Let's do something about it. But King Lemuel, which is

probably a nickname for King Solomon's mom.

And God knows that men sometimes we're not passive in other in

other areas. There are certain areas where in

fact we spend too much time. And so the word of God goes on,

and it says, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on

those who ruin kings. It's not for kings, Lemuel.

It's not for kings to drink wine, nor for rulers to crave

beer, lest they drink and forget what has been decreed and

deprive all the oppressed of their rights.

We're not passive sometimes in the areas where we shouldn't be.

Men, are you paying more attention than to pornography,

than to your wife and to your kids?

And The thing is, it will SAP your strength.

It will leave you no energy left to be devoted to your home.

You know, the Bible doesn't say the drinking itself is wrong,

although drunkenness is. But it's sure hard to be

intoxicated at home and still lead and manage your family

well. And it's not just these two

areas where we get distracted from leading our family through

the minefield. It's other things that pull our

attention away and we forget what we're doing.

Gaming. Are you more engaged in gaming

than you are in guiding your family towards Christ?

Have you made more plans for buying your next truck than you

have for building your family on the foundation of God and His

Word? Do you know more about your

hobby than you do about your wife and kids?

Listen, listen, listen. Some of these other temporary

pursuits are not bad in and of themselves, but they're a

secondary thing. And for some reason, we get

attracted to those things instead of pouring our passion

into the primary thing that God has given us and an eternally

significant pursuit of raising up our kids, of preparing them

for the roles that he has in the family, in the future, in the

Kingdom, and in society. There's something that I want

you to understand as we think about what is passivity look

like? And it's this passivity isn't

about your personality. It's about initiative versus

inaction. You know, we're all different.

Some of us are really outspoken, some of us are really quiet,

some of us are extroverts, some of us are introverts, but all of

us are called to be the people who are leading our homes for

God. So just take some of the

planning that you already do for work and direct it towards your

family. Take what you already have

passion about in your hobby and put it towards your home.

Take whatever interest you have in your favorite sports teams

and start to direct it towards your wife and your kids or your

husband and your kids. Another thing about what

passivity looks like is that it's a cousin to laziness and

procrastination. Look at what it says in the book

of Proverbs in chapter 24. It says a little sleep, a little

slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will

come on you like a thief, and scarcity like an armed man.

Guys, how many were at Uncommon last year?

If you were there, you probably remembered the first message of

Uncommon. Matt Proctor came and he drove

from Missouri, and with him he brought two things.

He brought his lazy boy from home and he put it on one side

of the stage and he brought some combat boots and he put them on

the other side of the stage. And he said, men, the most

dangerous position in your home, the most dangerous place there

is the easy chair. So get out of the chair and put

on the boots. And guys, uncommon registration

for 2026 is open now. So don't be passive.

Sign up today. Sign up early.

Get the early bird ray. Passivity is not a sudden bomb

that will destroy your family. It's a rot.

It's a slow, silent killer made-up of 1000 missed

opportunities. It might not be so much what

you're doing, but what you're not doing.

It's the accumulation of little moments when you chose comfort,

you stayed in the chair, you kept the remote in your hand,

you kept scrolling. You stayed out in the shed

instead of choosing inconvenience, Clayton said It

one of the other sermons that stuck with me.

He said if you're not loving your wives and leading your

family in a way that's selfless and sacrificial and painful,

you're not doing it right. Passivity not only leads to

destruction in the end, but it also leaves you with a bitter

cup of regret that after your kids have left the home, you

realized you never discipled them.

You realize you never opened the Bible with them.

You never told them about what Jesus did for you and what it

what he means to you. You never warned them about

Satan's tricks. You never prayed with them.

You never asked them how you could pray for them.

You never modeled forgiveness by apologizing to them.

You were going to, but you said, I'm going to do it next time.

Not this week. We're really busy this week.

I'll get to it next week. In the fall, you said I'll do it

in the spring. In the spring you said I'll do

it in the summer, and you never did.

Let me talk about passivity in marriages.

Passivity in marriage can sometimes create conflict

because one spouse, not always, but some, a lot of times is that

the man is passive and the woman is dying for the guy to lead.

And so then sometimes she starts to lead or she starts to nag and

he doesn't like those things and it creates conflict.

But other times passivity can be contagious and both spouses are

guilty of it and it's leading to a marriage that merely exists.

Check this out In the 1990s, family therapist and researcher

Doctor John Gottman studied thousands of marriages and found

out that couples who avoided discussing serious relationships

problem relationship problems. They were passive in their

marriage. They didn't have better

marriages. Let me say it again.

Those who avoided discussing serious relationship problems

didn't have better marriages, but they had divorces that took

longer to happen. Pay attention here, guys.

Do not become a statistic. His research showed that

unresolved issues in marriage don't disappear overtime.

No, instead they go underground. And then they surfaced later as

criticism, as contempt, as defensiveness, and as

stonewalling. Couples who thought that they

were keeping the peace by not addressing problems were

actually creating the very conditions that would lead to

future relationship breakdown. Their passivity LED them

straight into the landmine. Gottman Studies demonstrator

demonstrated this. Check this out.

Marriages with higher conflict levels but better resolution

skills were more stable than marriages where couples avoided

conversations all together. Conflicts.

Not bad. It can even breed closer

intimacy if you have the resolution skills to be able to

handle the conflict. And here's where Satan can trick

us because we might think that we're doing the right thing by

being patient with our spouses sin, but we're actually being

passive by not addressing what needs to be addressed.

There's that thing in your marriage or in your family that

you can't talk about. That's passivity.

And instead of using your energy to address that thing, you use

your energy instead to coach everybody else in the family how

not to set off mom or dad. Instead of trying to do that,

use your energy to address the problem.

It's like you're using your energy to avoid the landmine

when you could be using your energy to remove it safely all

together. Don't let passivity masquerade

itself as godliness. It's good to address things in

your family that need to be addressed.

Remove the landmine. And here's the thing, you get to

choose. We get to choose between the

pain of difficult conversations because I realized that

addressing some of those things are going to be uncomfortable.

It's going to take maybe many conversations, late nights,

maybe you got to go to counseling.

Maybe it's a season of discomfort in the relationship.

It'll be painful. I recognize it.

We all know that's true. But do you want the pain, pain

of difficult conversations now, or do you want the pain of

something like divorce in the future?

It's going to hurt either way. So tackle the problem now

instead of a lifetime of regret and a wake of heartache later.

And I bet some of you are saying, look, I've tried and

it's just not working. Like I'm, I'm addressing these

things, I'm bringing them up and I just feel like it's no more

use. It's not working.

Don't give up, continue and if you need to try it from

different angles, if you need to, just committed to prayer, if

you need to bring somebody in alongside you to help you

navigate through it, do not give up.

Now we see what passivity is like, but I want to tell you the

good news today. The good news is this, that if

you're a Christian, you have everything in you to not be

passive because passivity is contrary to the nature of God,

and therefore it's contrary to the nature of a Christian.

God is not a passive God. He wasn't passive when he

created the world, He wasn't passive when he developed the

plan of salvation, when he sent a global flood, when he parted

the red seas, and the list goes on.

And Jesus, our Lord and Savior, was not passive when He came to

this earth on a mission to die for our sins.

There's a great line in Luke chapter 951 and it says this

about Jesus. As the time approached for him

to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely said out for

Jerusalem. Jesus knew what awaited him in

Jerusalem. It was no surprise.

He knew he had land mines all around him.

He was going to be betrayed. He was going to be arrested.

He was going to be mocked and abused.

He was going to be beaten, He was going to be crucified, and

he was going to, on the cross, bear the wrath of his Father,

not because of his sins, but because of all of ours.

And he went anyway. He did not avoid the land mines,

He was not passive to remain distant from the plan of God,

but he went through it with every step calculated and depend

upon God in prayer. In the Bible describes it, it

says he resolutely set out. It's a more descriptive

metaphor. Or in the original it says he

fixed his face to go to Jerusalem and that same

determination that was in Jesus. Rest in each believer in Jesus

Christ. You may not realize what you are

capable capable of, but I am here to tell you.

In Second Timothy chapter one verse 7, it says this.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but

He has given us a spirit of power and love and

self-discipline. If you're a Christian, you have

the Spirit of God living inside of you.

And that means that even though you and I might be people who

are naturally fearful and I want to avoid conflict, we might

naturally be timid and not want to approach a difficult

conversation. We might naturally be passive.

You do not have to be ruled by your own nature if you're in

Christ, because you have a new self created a new in Christ

Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit's nature in

you. And he can work through you and

he can give you his power and his love and his

self-discipline. You have his power to overcome

your fear, you have His love to move you to action, and you have

his self-discipline that's greater than any motivation to

move you past your laziness. You may not feel like you can

experience that kind of work in your life, but God is telling

you, and I'm here to tell you and I'm asking you to believe

that it's true and to you to lean in and to listen, listen,

listen, listen to what God says is true about you.

I want to read another place in Ephesians chapter 1, verses 18

Ephesians 1:18–21

through 21. It says, I pray that the eyes of

your heart may be enlightened. Everybody say enlightened in

order that you may know. Say you may know the hope to

which He's called you, the riches of His glorious

inheritance and His holy people, and say this with me, His

incomparably great power for us to believe.

That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when

he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right

hand. In the heavenly realms far above

all rule and authority, power and dominion, every name that is

invoked, not only in this present age, but also in the one

to come. This is a prayer, and it was a

prayer that Paul prayed 2000 years ago, and he was praying it

for some Christians who lived in a town called Ephesus that some

of our friends just got to see. And he was praying it for moms

and dads, for husbands and wives, young and old alike,

because sometimes we as Christians, we're in this

position where we don't realize who we can be and who God's

called us to be in every resource that he's given us

along the way. And so I'm asking you to take

this prayer for yourself and to believe it.

And I'm telling you as well, this is God's prayer for you.

He wants every person here today that in Christ you have the

power to be active in your home, you have great power to forge a

new path for your family, and you have incomparably great

power that's in every Christian household to create a legacy of

faith for generations to come. And so today, I'm asking you to

take an action step. This is a day of decision.

One of the reasons why I think that we stay passive in our

homes is because we don't know what to do.

It's like, OK, I might feel like hey, I should do something, but

what do I do? I'm going to tell you 4 things

to do and right now I'm asking you to write it down.

Take out your phone, take a note, take out your phone, take

a picture of the screen, but do something.

Don't be passive. Do something.

Because if we spent the last five weeks talking about all

these land mines and all the things that we want to do, but

you don't take a step, then it's all for not.

So here we go. 4 things. You can pick one, you can pick

4, whatever you want to do. The first thing is build

yourself up spiritually. If you're trying to lead your

family spiritually and you're not there yet, then just start

with working on yourself. And there are all kinds of ways

that you can do that by coming regularly to church, by reading

the Bible. All these things, I would

recommend you joining ADBS at your location, a Discovery Bible

study. And the reason is because it'll

give you a group of people around you where you're doing it

together and you're learning together, you're learning from

each other and you're holding each other accountable.

And I think about a guy who, after last year's Uncommon,

joined my DBS group and he came and he was very open about he

wasn't where he wanted to be as a man.

He wasn't where he wanted to be as a husband.

He wasn't where he wanted to be as a dad.

And nine months, ten months later, this guy, every aspect of

his life, life has changed because of that support and

because of that pursuit that he had to step out and just take

one step, joining the group. Second thing, build your, build

a plan for your family. Do you have a vision for your

family? I mentioned Matt Proctor earlier

from Uncommon last year. Do you guys remember if you were

there? He has a vision for his family

that was built on like an acrostic of his last name, like

Proctor in each letter represented something that he

wanted his family to look like. What do you want your family?

You could do it that way or you could just write down what you

want your family to look like in 5 to 10 years from now.

Write it down and then write down a routine.

If this is where you want to be in five to 10 years and you're

here now, what's something that you can do on a day in, day out

basis that is going to move you closer and closer to that

vision? And literally again, write it

down. It's like this is where we're

prone to be passive. Like I'll just remember it, I'll

think about it, write it down and discuss it with your spouse.

Third thing is start a prayer journal.

So first of all, if you need, if you don't have a journal, buy a

journal. And here's what I would

encourage you to do. Ask every member of your family,

what's one thing that I can be praying for you about and write

it in that journal. You can also take your vision

that you wrote and your routine and write it in the journal.

And every day, grab your journal, go to a place and spend

some time praying every day. I'm telling you the

accumulation, just like on the passivity side, the accumulation

of little things will lead you into a landmine.

The accumulation of little action steps will lead you to

the realization of your vision. And the fourth thing is you can

lead your family in a Discovery Bible study ADBS there in your

home. So right now you can take out

your app and one of the first few messages that you'll see on

it is a summer family DBS. We thought, hey, we're coming

out of this series. We're heading into summer.

This could be a great time to equip our families and our

church to do something to live out what we've been talking

about. Just go there.

And if you're like, hey, I don't know how to leave the DBS, you

just click on the link you and it tells you, hey, if you know

how to lead a go for it. If you don't know how to lead

it, click here. We'll take care of the rest for

you. Now, 2 tips that I want to give

you as you begin an action plan. And this is super important.

Number one, don't despise small beginnings.

So you know, if you've never played golf before and you go

out today, you don't expect to shoot par.

Now probably you're like, hey, I've been golfing for 20 years

and I go out today and I don't expect to shoot par.

I got you. All right.

Take another example. You, you've not, you've not been

working out. You go out today and you go and

you hit the gym, you expect to be tired, you expect to be

gasping, you expect to be weak. And tomorrow you expect to be

super sore. The same thing is true as you

start this with your family. Look, guys, I've been in

ministry for a long time and I remember the first times that I

tried to start leading my family in these ways and I felt like I

was a green one. I just didn't even, I'm

stumbling all over myself for some reason, it's easier to

preach to a bunch of people than to have a little devotion with

my family. And so do not despise that.

Like you're going to expect that it's going to be hard at 1st,

that it's, you're going to stumble through, but keep going.

And the second thing is give lots of grace.

And Clayton said it before up here on the stage too.

He said his most contested hour of his week is his family.

DBS, right? That's the hardest part.

So that's why we got to give ourselves lots of grace.

Like, you're going to get upset sometimes and you're going to

screw up. Give yourself lots of grace,

apologize, learn from it and keep going.

Your kids or your family, they're going to do things that

that's going to screw up. Give them lots of grace, learn

from it, and move on. If I told you right now today

that in your backyard there's a landmine, what would you do?

If I told you today that there's a landmine in your living room,

what would you do? And what would you think about

the person who knew that and did nothing about it?

God has called us to be the protectors of our kids and of

our homes and the providers, not only materially but spiritually.

I want to review with you real quick the four purposes of the

family. And you might want to write this

down or take a picture of it as well so you can add it to your

prayer journal if you're doing that.

God has called us to be those who are preparing our kids for

godliness. That they would be people who

know Jesus, love Him, and follow Him and know his ways are the

best ways. That we would be preparing our

families and our kids for future roles in the family.

That they would be set up to be the kinds of husbands, fathers,

moms, and dads that they should be.

That they would be prepared for future roles in the Kingdom,

being part of a body of Christ that's serving and giving and

connected and who is making disciples, and to be prepared to

live as salt and light in this Dark World in society.

Over the past five weeks we have gotten some great advice and

tons of biblical wisdom about what to do and what not to do in

our marriages and in our families.

But today is the day of decision.

I'm wondering who will get out of the chair and put on the

boots. I'm wondering who's going to

listen, listen, listen. I'm wondering who is going to

fix their face to leave a spiritual legacy in their home.

You have the incomparably great power of God in you to prevail.

Will you kick Satan out of the driver's seat and take the wheel

of your family? Because God is not giving us a

spirit of fear and timidity, but of power and love and

self-discipline. We're moving to a time of

decision. I want to speak a minute aside

from the family in the marriage context to you as an individual.

If you are here and you do not have an intimate personal

relationship with Jesus Christ, will you hear me out for just a

minute? The Bible says don't put off

what you can do today because you don't know what tomorrow

holds. And my guess is that you're here

and you've probably heard about Jesus before.

You've probably heard how God loved the world so much that he

sent his only Son to die for the sins of the world, for your sins

and my sins, and that you can never out sin the love of God

for you. He loves you so much, He wrote a

book to tell you about it. He sent his son to demonstrate

it. And we're here today.

His Spirit is in US and He is calling you.

He is orchestrated this day-to-day to say this is a day

of decision. Not just a day of decision for

moms and dads, for households, but a day of decision for you to

stand before God and to stop running away from him.

To stop putting off and being passive spiritually and putting

it off and putting it off and putting it off.

And I know you're probably saying, but that's not me.

I don't know that I can become that person.

It's just not who I've been and people don't know me to be that

way. Guess what?

Me too. And guess what?

Every person who's ever followed Jesus Christ before has that

story. And here's the beauty of the

gospel is that you can't do it yourself.

But when you relinquish yourself to Him, would you lay down your

life? When you put your faith in Jesus

Christ, He does it for you. He washes your sins away for

you. He gives you a new life and a

new purpose and a hope. He does it for you.

He gives you His own Spirit inside of you to replace your

own so that He can do it for you.

But you have to receive the gift of salvation in the way that He

calls us to receive that gift. He says repent and be baptized

for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive the

gift of the Holy Spirit. Put your faith in me and your

life will be built on a rock that will never be shaken.

In just a minute, people are going to come to the steps and

pray as we sing the next song. And I want to encourage you, if

that's you and if you're ready to stop being passive

spiritually, but to receive God and to step into what he has for

you. There's somebody who's going to

be right over there underneath the screen by the baptistry.

And you can go talk to them and tell them, hey, I'm looking

forward to what this looks like for me.

And they'll guide you through it.

And we will celebrate with you, and we'll be in your corner, and

we'll be armed from in arm with you as you journey that through.

And for those of us who are Christians, what do you need to

do that you have not been doing? What are areas where you've been

passive, lazy, procrastinating? Maybe it's just in your own

personal life, maybe not just your home.

That too. But maybe in other ways, God's

been calling you to do things. He's been pulling on you for

this or for that, and you keep just ignoring, ignoring,

ignoring. Today's a day of decision.

Today is a day where you can come and say, God, give me the

strength and the power and the love and the self-discipline to

stop putting you off and to start doing what you're calling

me to do. Or maybe there are things you're

doing that you need to stop doing.

God will give you the strength. As you come this morning, repent

and say, God, I believe that you can do it for me.

My eyes are open to know the power that you have to work in

me. So God, I'm just trusting you

that you're going to do it. And mom's, it's Mother's Day.

I know that this can be a hard day for you.

Maybe you wanted to have kids and you didn't.

Maybe you lost a child or maybe you'll you lost a mom and that

could be the same for all of us. Maybe mom's not here today.

So this is a time to step into that tender moment as well, that

broken moment as well, and give that to God.

Bring it to him this morning. Maybe you want to circle around

your mom or your wife and pray for her this morning and thank

her and bless her and ask for God to bless your family.

Why don't we stand as we pray? Father God, I am praying that

what it says in the Bible, where it says the Kingdom of God is

not a matter of talk, but of power.

And God, that's what I'm asking you would unleash among us is a

real work of your Kingdom, not where we just talk the talk, but

where we walk in, where we live it out in our day-to-day lives,

God. And we're all in different spots

and we all have different steps to take.

But I pray, God, that nobody here would remain where they

are, but that everybody would have some sort of work in their

lives that you would do by your grace and power.

And in the mighty name of Jesus, I pray.

Amen.