Complacent to Committed | UNLEASHED | Kyle Idleman

author irwin lutzer shares a letter that was written to him it was written by a christian who lived during hitler's germany and he writes to share his story i just want to read it to you he writes i lived in germany during the nazi holocaust i considered myself a christian we heard stories of what was happening to the jews but but we tried to distance ourselves from all of that because what could anyone really do to stop it a railroad track ran behind our small church and on each sunday morning we could hear the whistle and the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks and we became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by we realized that it was carrying jews like cattle and those cars and week after week he writes the whistle would blow and we dreaded to hear that sound because we knew that it would soon be followed by the cries of jews in route to a death camp and their screams tormented us we also knew what time during the church service that train was coming so when we heard the whistle blow letting us know that it was drawing closer we would begin singing hymns and by the time the train came past our church we were singing at the top of our voices if we heard the screams still we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more he writes that was a long time ago and many years have passed and no one talks about it anymore but i still hear that train whistle in my sleep god forgive me forgive all of us who called ourselves christians yet did nothing the word i want to talk to you about this morning is the word complacent i suppose that word doesn't sound very uh dangerous doesn't sound very threatening we wouldn't call a complacent person an evil person i suppose if you were coming up with a list of concerns that we have in our world right now and you were putting together your own list i doubt complacency would make would make your list maybe but i doubt it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal but what if i told you what if i told you that the greatest threat to the world today is a church full of complacent followers of jesus 2021 really hasn't started out it really hadn't started out how we hoped it would got off to a rough start as we watched at the beginning of the year the disturbing scenes at the capitol and then this week we're not really sure what to expect lots of preparation going into the inauguration we don't know i don't know what'll happen some of you remember in chemistry class doing labs remember doing this where you would take different elements and you would mix them together and then you'd see what happened do a little experiment see what kind of reaction you would get and i feel like that's a bit of the season that we have found ourselves in where you just take a combination of things and so there's this fear and anxiety around health and you add that with some um stress and strain around finances and you mix that together with a lot of political division and and you add that with a lot of antagonizing language and these non-stop you know inciting news headlines and constant provoking posts on social media and then you just you see a reaction we've witnessed a lot of that this year rioting in the streets rush on the capitol and it's it's shameful it's scary it feels a little bit surreal in some ways it's shocking but it shouldn't necessarily be shocking because there's just this helplessness this combination of different elements it feels like they've come together and we all want to do something but what do we do we want to respond in the right way but how at least as followers of jesus if i could talk to those of you in the room who are followers of jesus you know how do we how do we respond because i mean what i know is we don't want to be complacent right like we don't want to cover our ears and just gather together in our sanctuaries and sing more loudly as the trains pass by like that's that's not that's not what we want to do in this time of history and there are some who who would say and would think that the opposite of complacency is aggressive hostility now that if you are not cursing those who are against you if you're not raging against those who disagree with you then that somehow makes you complacent there's some people who feel that way and yet our example is the example of jesus and he was always feeling pressured i shouldn't say he was always feeling pressured i don't know that he ever felt pressured to do anything he was always pressured people were always trying to pressure him to take sides they were always trying to pressure him to change the world with some sort of political power and position to change the world by force i mean that's how you did it and jesus just refused to take part in that political approach now that's not to say that jesus didn't speak politically he did he talked a lot about the kingdom that he was bringing but it was a whole new kingdom and and he rejected the power and the position that tends to go along with politics but people were always trying to put that on him and i think it frustrated the disciples they wanted they wanted jesus to to step into this position of power because they would rise along with him and and he just refused to do it just wouldn't do it sometimes he was asked political questions and he usually just gave a quick answer hey give to caesar what is caesar and he just would move on there are so many opportunities he would have had to talk about the different politics of the day in different ways but he didn't do it again it's not to say he wasn't political he was just bringing in a whole new kingdom and and the disciples struggled with this they were frustrated by it i think in part this is one of the reasons why judas betrayed jesus like we think judas betrayed jesus for the money he was just greedy and he wanted the 30 pieces of silver but i think it was more than that because four days before the betrayal think about what happened with me jesus is walking or riding in on a donkey and the crowd has gathered on either side of them and they are ready to crown him king like this is the moment it's the moment they've been waiting on it's it's the moment for him to take political power and position the timing is perfect the disciples knew what jesus could do they knew he had the power this was this was the opportunity and again jesus jesus refuses and so judas betrays jesus he leads hundreds of soldiers into a garden where jesus is praying the garden of gethsemane and i think part of what i don't know this for sure i think part of what jesus was doing was trying to force jesus into a position to show what kind of power he had you surround him with hundreds of roman soldiers stand back see what he can do the soldiers come john 18 says that they ask which one of you is jesus and jesus says i am he and the moment he says it they all fall to the ground the moment he says i am he all the soldiers fall to the ground and now the disciples are like okay here we go we've been waiting for this it's go time peter pulls out his sword and he takes off the ear of one of the roman soldiers and what is what does jesus do he he heals the man and he says this is not listen this is not why i have come an insurrection is not what i have come to lead well is it because he didn't have the power oh he had the power in fact matthew puts it this way matthew 26 jesus says at this time he says don't you realize that i could ask my father for thousands and this number here is like 72 000. don't you realize that i could ask my father for thousands of angels to protect us and he would send them instantly did you think this was a question of power why did you not know that i just i mean i just give a head nod that's all it takes just a head knife and 72 000 angels can wipe out these shoulders that's not the kingdom he came to bring he didn't come to bring a kingdom of hostility he came to bring a different kind of kingdom and now was that because he was complacent no it's not because he was complacent he just came to bring a different kingdom and in the kingdom that jesus came to bring you consider others better than yourselves he describes the kingdom on the serm in the sermon on the mount in the kingdom that he came to bring someone strikes you on one cheek you turn the other cheek as well so that sounds cowardly okay well try it takes a lot of courage and the kingdom that he came to bring if someone sues you for your shirt you give him your coat if someone says you walk one mile you go two miles and the kingdom that he came to bring you listen you bless those who curse you don't curse those who curse you you bless those who curse you and you love your enemies this is the kingdom that we are committed to if you're a follower of jesus this is the kingdom that you are called to advance if you're a follower of jesus you can speak up about your political beliefs especially in the country in which we live you can speak up about opinions and ideologies that you disagree with you can take a stand and you can make your case but listen the moment you the moment you stop loving your enemies the moment you start to curse those who disagree with you you need to sit down and shut your mouth that's not the kingdom that jesus came to bring that's not the kingdom that he came to advance it's not just what you say it's the way you say it it's not just what you do it's the it's it's how you do it it's not just the cause that you're committed to it is the spirit of christ so you can do the right things and you can have the right policies but if you don't do that with the humility and the love and the compassion of jesus you're better off just staying on the sideline we need the spirit of christ and jesus listen you think that's harsh you go back and you read to what jesus read what jesus says to the pharisees who lived that way they were doing the right things that they did not have the right heart towards people it's not just the cause that we are committed to it is christ it is the way of jesus so tomorrow is martin luther king day martin luther king jr of course preached this uh in powerful ways that it's not just the cause we don't want to just be committed to a cause but we want to be committed to the way jesus teaches if you love your enemies darkness can't drive out darkness he says only light can do that and in a letter from um in his publication or in his letter from a birmingham jail that would become a publication he wrote about how the early christians changed the world and i love how he describes the early church he describes them as small in number but big in commitment small number but big in commitment but what were they committed to they were committed to the way of christ and he he writes about what he calls i love this the gospel glow of the early christians that this is how the early church changed the world it wasn't through power and position it was through love and compassion that is the jesus way and philip yancey wrote a book a few years ago called the jesus i never knew i would recommend it to those of you who want to learn a little bit more about jesus and i i just will quote a part of this book here to you where he addresses this he says regardless of the merits of a given political issue no matter how valid you think your political perspective is on any given issue whether it's a pro-life lobby on the right or a peace and justice lobby on the left political movements risk pulling onto themselves the mount the mantle of power that's mother's love you already say from jesus i learned that whatever activism i get involved in it must not drive out love and humility otherwise i betray the kingdom of heaven so we want to do something but we don't want to be complacent but let me just say do not conf listen do not confuse humility and love with complacency jesus was not complacent in the same way don't confuse hostility and rage with commitment and so jesus says for us this example is it's the example that the early church follow followed it's what they they modeled and in this series called unleashed we're studying through different narratives in the book of acts where they are living out the kingdom of heaven through the church one of the things that we say here one of our vision for this church the commitment that we've made as we begin this new year is that we want to unleash the full force of the church to love people one at a time that this was the jesus way of changing the world and we see that consistently throughout the book the book of acts that this is this is how the the early church had such tremendous impact and so i i want to give you a couple of examples a couple of stories from the book of acts that demonstrate the difference between complacency and commitment i'm going to look at acts 4 and 5 and then in your in your study if you're in a small group you're going to go through the story of stephen and acts chapter six and seven and and stephen sets for us this beautiful example of of commitment if you're not in a small group going through unleashed i would love to challenge you to do that last week on sunday we talked about this within 24 hours we had over 400 people sign up to be a part of an online group like it's not an in-person group that they're doing it online we have some in-person groups but you can join us online and um the unleashed group is going to go through some of acts 7 but i want us to look at at an example in acts chapter four and five this is a story of a couple who starts out committed that they become complacent and complacency has a way of leading to compromise so a little context here we'll start in acts chapter 4 uh starting in verse 32. it says all the believers lots of unity all the believers were one in heart and mind and no one claimed that any of their possessions was their own that's how united they were but they shared everything they had with great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the lord jesus like that is the message of the early church they are preaching jesus and the resurrection of christ and the bible says god's grace was so powerfully at work in them all and there were no needy persons among them so one of the ways that you see the power of god at work through a church is in taking care of people who aren't in need it's one of the evidences that god is at work in a church and here's how that happened here's one of the ways that happened it says from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them and brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to anyone who had need so i just want to point out a couple of things as we think about moving from complacent to committed that the early church demonstrated their commitment through sacrificial generosity so commitment is demonstrated by what we sacrifice for sacrifice is defined as giving up something you love for something or someone you love more you show me who or what you sacrifice for and i'll show you who or what you are committed to jesus is the one who made this connection for us he talks a lot about money because money tells the story of your commitment jesus said in matthew chapter 6 verse 21 for wherever your riches wherever your treasures are that's where your heart is going to be also that's what you are that's what you're committed to what you sacrifice for reveals the level the depth of your commitment and so the early church modeled their commitment through sacrificial generosity second thing i wanted to draw your attention to there in acts 4 is they helped people in need by giving through the church like we talked about giving to the church but what we really see here is they gave through the church and the reason i want to point this out is if you study church history this is one of the one of the factors of why the early church had such an impact on the world it's because the believers came together they gave generously to help people in need but they did it through the church and in doing it through the church it pointed people to jesus and it connected people to a family church family now i'll tell you it's not i mean if i'm just being honest that's not necessarily how i like to do giving like it feels better to me personally if i'm going to be generous if i just give it individually and certainly that's good like it's good to do that kind of giving and that kind of generosity like i'd rather just give it directly to an organization i get some recognition a pat on the back feel a little better about myself the early church had such impact upon that culture because the believers were giving sacrificially and then the church was able to give to people who are neat and one of the you know one of the things that happened in that moment was that the people are drawn to jesus drawn to the church now we'd have a harder time with that because we kind of like a little recognition but when we give that way it takes our ego out of it and it gives it gives the recognition to to jesus so in chapter five we read about um you know a couple we read that some people would sell their land and homes and on occasion bring it to bring it to the church it's not that they didn't love their land and homes they did they just they loved the mission that they were called to be part of more so in acts chapter five here's here's what we we read with this couple that there was a certain man named ananias who with his wife sapphira sold some property he brought part of the money to the apostles but he claimed it was the full amount with his wife's consent he kept the rest so do you hear the problem here it's not that they didn't give all the money it's that they said they were going to give all the money and they only gave a part of it the problem the issue was an issue of commitment what they were doing is different than what they said they would would do and so acts chapter 5 4 tells us that peter confronts ananias about this and peter says how can you do this thing you're not lying to us but you're lying to god it's not just us it's god that you're lying to it's god you're withholding from and we're going to see how seriously god takes the commitments that we make verse 5 says when ananias heard this he fell down and died wait what like he gave some of the money that's not it's not about that it's about the commitment he made and it's about the community he was a part of god takes those things seriously he's undermining the whole community as he does this acts 5 verse 7. about three hours later his wife came in and not knowing what had happened peter asked her was this the price is this amount here is that the price you and your husband received for your land yes she replied that was the price and peter said how could the two of you even think about conspiring to test the spirit of the lord like this the young men who carried your husband are just out carried out your husband are just outside the door and they will carry you out too and instantly she fell on the floor and died well that seems extreme like that seems really dramatic especially if you've never heard this story before like this had to help giving for a while i i i would imagine it just it's a little unexpected i i i suppose if you've known the story for a while it doesn't it doesn't seem as um surprising i learned that story as a kid when i was uh in elementary school in church they had a children's church song that we sang about ananias and sapphira it told the story in the song did any of you know what i'm talking about raise your hand if you know what i'm talking about story the song of anna and i said i got a few okay i don't want to really sing it for you but but here's here's how i learned the story with the song goes like this ananias and sapphira got together to conspire a plot to cheat the church and get ahead they do knew god's power but didn't fear and tried to cheat the holy spirit peter prophesied and they both dropped dead like that's the song and then and then it goes and they both drop dead god loves a cheerful giver give them all you got like that's the that's the song and so it seems it seems it seems a little drastic but but really the the message here is that we clearly underestimate how much this matters to god like we don't like to talk about some of these things we don't like to talk about money we don't like to talk about the personal commitments that we make and and yet jesus talks a lot about it because money tells the story of our commitments money has a way of testifying to what we are committed to james chapter 5 james writes to people who are rich but the problem is their selfishness of people who are he says arrogant in their wealth and james chapter 5 verse 2 says your wealth is rotting away your fine clothes are moth eaten rags your gold and silver are corroded the very wealth you were counting on will eat away your flesh like fire this corroded treasure you have hoarded listen we'll testify against you on the day of judgment this is such a different way to look at money and possessions like you think the stacks of cash and the pile of possessions that you accumulate throughout your lifetime when you die will testify to your success nope james says they testify against you they testify against you the message puts it this way you thought you were piling up wealth but what you've piled up is judgment and so acts 5 gives us kind of a glimpse of this this judgment with ananias and sapphire i want to draw your attention to verse 4 where where peter says to ananias how could you do a thing like this look he didn't get a chance to answer but i i think i understand i do i think it has a lot to do with complacency like he got complacent when he first thought about doing something like this he probably thought no oh that's a bad idea i i committed the full amount i'm going to give the full amount but then he started to think about different ways that he could use that money if they kept some of it for themselves but he didn't want to lose face with the rest of the community in the church oh hey we don't need to tell what if we just what if we just give them part of it but we tell them that's all of it it's complacency complacent with the truth complacent with commitment complacent with community that trusts you complacent complacent with what matters to god and so i want us to talk about that because i i know god is calling us as a church in this season out of complacency but the challenge that i struggle with in this is how do you call complacent people to not be complacent right like like how do you do that you're complacent about complacency so you don't really care by definition about being complacent so how do you do that i want to give you just some um different descriptions of complacency to help us i hope wake up number one complacency is a feeling of indifference that settles in over a period of time it's just getting used to the way things are at first something disturbs you and you think i need to do something about that but over time you begin to accept it and so you move into the house and a train goes behind your house and at first it's all you can hear and think about but over the years you don't even notice it number two complacency is the inner voice that convinces you that someone else will do something and we talk about this at church it's in psychology it's called the bystander effect it's this idea that if you're sitting in a crowd of people if you're aware that there's tens hundreds thousands of other people you just think well it's not that i don't care about it but someone else will do something someone else you know someone else who has more time we'll serve someone else who has more money will give someone else will sponsor a child someone else will do something about human trafficking some someone else will take in a foster child someone someone else will do something that's that's complacency number three complacency is often disguised as procrastination it's not that i'm not gonna do something i'm just not gonna do something right now and so it's ananias saying to sapphira hey it's not so much a lie because we'll make it right later number four complacency is this unhealthy and unaware self-satisfaction with your life where you just well it's kind of the husband i mean it's not just husbands but husbands have a way of doing this like they they compare their husbandry wife seem to go the opposite direction but but husbands tend to compare their husbandness by looking at the lower common denominators right like they measure themselves on a curve or they we i'm one of them we we tend to feel better about ourselves as husbands by turning husbanding into a competition and then comparing ourselves to people that we think we're doing better than and that is a common approach to difference making like this is how we often measure influence and impact we turn it into a competition and then we intentionally make sure we are competing with people we feel like we're doing a little better then and we have this kind of unhealthy and unaware self-satisfaction with what god wants to do in us and through us number five complacency is inaction when an impending threat calls for action there's something that's happening and and you need to do something about it but you're not doing anything it's like the wildfires in california where they go and they pound on the doors trying to get people to evacuate because they don't realize how close the fire is and and the people think that they still have time and so they're watching of uh they're watching on the news in their family room a fire that's happening that's threatening their home and they're they're not leaving and and in this season it's one of the things that we're going to be doing as a church is we're going to be doing a lot of pounding on doors we're going to try to help people wake up and recognize the urgency of the season that we're in that the return of jesus is closer than you think we're going to help people recognize the urgency of the world the needs of the world that we live in we're not going to turn away from that we're not going to just change the channel we're going to get up and answer the door i was reading about an occupation in the early 20th century britain it's a job where where people who did this job were responsible to go by and knock on the doors of other people in the community and wake them up that was their job i hate the title this is what they were called i'm not making this up the person who did this job the title of this job was they were called a knocker-upper which is a really unfortunate name but they were it was that's the if you google it they were called the knocker upper and i wouldn't you wouldn't want to put that on your resume i should have said and and but they that's what they would do they would stay up and then they would go around and they would knock on because there weren't alarm clocks that were reliable and so people depended on on the on the knocker uppers to come by and knock on the door and make sure they were up and they were ready and there's a sense in which this is what we will be doing a lot of in the season that we will be making sure that people are awake and ready for the opportunities that there are things that call for action that we need to lean into number six complacency is making a choice to play it safe and take it easy hey i've done enough i've worked hard enough it's the man jesus talks about in luke chapter 12 who decides to tear down his barns and build bigger barns and the man tells himself in verse 19. and then i'll sit back and say to myself my friend you have enough stored away for years to come now take it easy take it easy and eat drink and be married so what's the problem here the problem is that his goal like his goal in life his complacency his goal in life is to be complacent and god says of this man in verse 20 you are a fool if if that's how you're living your life this life is just a moment we are here for just a breath and so this week in in your small groups as you go through acts 6 and 7 you'll study the story of stephen stephen is one of the early church leaders who goes from sitting to serving and god gives them more opportunities and then the people who killed jesus as you'll see they they threaten stephen and they start to spread lies about stephen and stephen just refuses to take it personal and to defend himself and said he just keeps talking to them about jesus keeps putting the focus on jesus and and just comes down to this moment where he has to decide to decide if i'm am i going to live for myself or am i going to live for jesus and the mission he gave the church and it's my prayer for us that this this moment really this series would be a moment like that for us where we would decide are we going to be complacent are we going to be committed it may not be as intense as it was for ananias and sapphira it may not be as as dramatic as it was for stephen but it but am i going to be committed am i going to get up and be a part of it am i just going to settle for this complacent complacent life how do you try to to wake someone up if they're struggling with complacency i don't like i don't know i hope some of you are hearing an alarm and it's getting your attention i hope one that's one of the ways god has been working in your life is he's he's working through secret circumstances and situations to help you get a different perspective on on this world to help you see things through the lens of eternity and so we want to sound the alarm we want to pound on the door because the whistle is blowing and the train is passing by and we're not just going to gather together and sing louder because i believe that these may be the moments and this may be the year that tells the story of complacent or committed let's pray jesus i thank you that you modeled committed love when you you died for us you came to this earth you sacrificed yourself and you've called us to be a part of your mission and i know god that for a lot of us that we've just settled for comfort and convenience and and complacency that that's become the goal of our lives for many of us and so i thank you jesus that you've taken some of those things away from us that you've real helped us realize how temporary many of those things are i pray that that the alarm would sound and that we would have our eyes opened to what you want to do in us and through us and that we would be a part of it that we wouldn't just sit but that we would engage in being a part of the mission that you have for the church in this world so i pray that that would start happening today i know that complacency loves the word tomorrow and i know that's the word that complacency is whispering to some people even now hey next next week next month i pray that we would hear your holy spirit saying to us today is the day it's in jesus name we pray amen

Channel: Southeast Christian Church

Views: 5,834

Keywords: Southeast Christian Church, Dave Stone, Kyle Idleman, creative church, sermon series, worship, Jesus, God, Louisville, Kentucky

Id: VsCBmjt1vyA

Length: 34min 14sec (2054 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 18 2021