Meh

Thank you, Mr. Richards and Aloha, brethren! I wasn't able to bring a ton of feast gifts, you know, the luggage and all, so I decided to bring Aloha from Hawaii to you. And I brought you Hurricane Anna, so you're welcome. We actually, it was kind of interesting, the last couple of days that we were there at the feast, as that particular hurricane was rolling in, you know, we kept kind of keeping an eye on it. We're not sure if it's going to hit us, and we're not really sure. We're checking the weather pages, and we're looking at different things. And at one point we're like, oh, it's here! You know, the waves have picked up, the winds are going, and somebody looks at the map and goes, no, no it's not. And we look, and sure enough, we had this little, itty-bitty blue cloud that was hanging off the island, and then there was this monstrosity of green and yellow about 100, you know, it looked like a hundred miles out coming at us. And a pretty incredible thing, though, you know, it's one of those things where you could see God's hand absolutely in it. We had brethren there that were leaving Sunday night at 10 p.m., so they were still on the island, and it started getting ugly about 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock. And so we had a one o'clock flight, so we're heading to the airport, kind of wondering if we're even going to be flying out or not, and sure enough we did. But we went on later once we got home, as you couldn't get on a wire on the plane, and that hurricane broke right around Kauai. It hit, the front end hit, there was no yellow or green that went over the island at all. It's like it hit this impenetrable barrier and just went around the island. So, you know, one of those things where you could definitely see God's hand in it. So as many of you know, I mean, from the greeting and from the lack of regulation uniform today, you could see that I came from the islands of Hawaii. We were there for the feast of Sharon Kauai. We had some phenomenal weather. We had wonderful feasts. It was a really good thing, but it was a feast of firsts for us. And for my family and myself, and it was really a feast of firsts. It was our first time on the island of Kauai. Not our first time in Hawaii. We've been to Hawaii before, but it was our first time on the island of Kauai. We had opportunities to try various foods, different kinds of foods for the very first time. I'd never had dragon fruit before, which for those of you who don't know, it's this little pink fruit. It's kind of, you cut it open. It looks like a kiwi inside, kind of. It tastes all right. I mean, it's not the best thing in the world, but it was kind of interesting and kind of unique. We had longan, which they call as dragon eye. It's this little, like, crispy thing. You break the shell off the outside. It looks like an eyeball. The kids loved that. They thought that was fun. Oh, look, it's an eye! You know, I had never had poi. So I had poi for the... it's not good. Poi's not that good. Mallory loved it. She just kept going back for more. But I picked my very first tree-grown avocado. I'd never done that before. I've never really been to Southern California, been to these places with tree-grown avocados. I then learned why you don't pick them directly off the tree, because they're not ripe, and they don't ripen for, like, three weeks. But we tried shave ice. We tried shave ice. It's a Hawaiian version of a slurpee. I learned to boogie board. I learned more so to hold my breath as the wave pounded me into the sand, but I learned to boogie board. We had our first experience with giant flying cockroaches.

There was a lot of screaming, flailing, and swatting, and then my wife calmly suggested that I get a shoe. Our roommates had their very first experience with a cane spider, and I was really thankful that it wasn't us that found it, because it was the size of a salad plate and living on our garbage can. There was more screaming, more flailing, and that was just from the picture that they texted me. So we went to our first luau. We were serenaded each morning by wild roosters.

For those of you that are not aware, really, the state bird of Kauai should be the rooster.

They had a hurricane back in 92 that knocked out this chicken processing plant. They got out into the jungles, and ever since they've been multiplying, there's no natural predators. They're everywhere. And around our house, we probably had 15 to 20 roosters. We never, well, I think we saw a hen all week, but just all these roosters around. And there was one in particular that loved to stand up on the back deck there and just crow, starting at about 2 30 in the morning, it seemed like, and on into about 9 o'clock.

But we had our very first experience with a hurricane. There were just a number of firsts for us, a number of these new, exciting experiences. And we recognize the Feast of Tabernacles is exciting. It's an amazing time when we come together with our brethren from around the world in a place where God has chosen to put his name, and we learn to fear him.

We enjoy this millennial setting in a location that we attend. And while the primary focus of the Feast of Tabernacles is the spiritual, we also have a wonderful opportunity to experience physical pursuits with our brethren while we're there. And the Feast of Tabernacles really is a perfect opportunity for new experiences.

And you know, it's really incredible to view those new experiences and the Feast of Tabernacles itself through the eyes of your children. It's incredible to see them experience some of these things for the very first time. And it's not that, you know, we've never noticed that before, but our boys are finally getting old enough to where they're starting to get interested in other things other than kind of just laying around. So, um, case in point, you know, before the Feast, the only experience that my children had with the beach has been here in Oregon.

Bundled, completely, head to toe in wool, scarf, hat, gloves, you get the picture. And I exaggerate, but you guys know how it is. Oregon's coast is not particularly beach friendly, so to speak. It's windy, it's cold, and so you can imagine their surprise when they can jump into the water and, you know, it's 80 plus degrees in the water and their teeth aren't chattering. You know, they were so excited. Mallory, every morning, the first words out of her mouth would go beach, go swimming, go beach.

I will never forget the smile on Desmond's face when he rode his very first wave on a boogie board, or his excitement at catching his very first gecko. They were living all around our house, inside, outside, all over the place. Nor will I forget the moment when Aiden put on a snorkel mask for the first time and opened his eyes underwater and experienced a whole new facet of God's creation. These are memories and moments that I won't forget. Aiden absolutely fell in love with snorkeling. We stayed about a block from the beach, so it was really easy to get to the beach and go and do it.

And the beach where we were at was very kid-friendly. It was poipu, which is this little kid-friendly beach. But at least once a day, in particular in the afternoon when it got really, really, really hot. We didn't have trade winds the entire time we were there, so it got to be about 80 or 90 most days. And about afternoon, it started to get unbearable. So a lot of folks headed for the beach in the afternoon, kind of cool off a little bit.

But every time we would go, he would gear up, he'd pop that mask and that snorkel in, he'd pop his fins on, and he'd disappear into the water. And he would stay in the water until we'd almost have to pull him out to go home. He'd kind of found his element. And I marveled at that. It was something that was interesting to me, because the stretch of water that he snorkeled, it's not a very big bay. Realistically, he had covered that water again and again and again and again and again. And yet he seemed to never tire of it, to never get bored of it.

But as I thought about this, and I realized, you know, how much he enjoyed this particular activity, it started to dawn on me. The reason he enjoyed it was because it was a new experience. He was fresh, it was new.

He was hyper-focused on it, because it was fresh and it was new. He'd never done it before. If this was something where we lived in Hawaii, we lived in this house, and this was an all-the-time sort of thing, would it be something that he began to take for granted? When asked to go snorkeling, maybe his response might become a kind of a non-committal, eh, I guess. You know, it got me thinking about the other experiences that I'd had. Would I like dragon fruit so much if I ate it all the time? Would I bookie board regularly if I actually lived there? Would the rooster still be kind of quaint, or would I completely loathe their existence? Would the wind and the rain that we had from that tropical storm, would that be exciting, like it was for us, or would it be a nuisance?

Would I still scream and would I flail about with cockroaches and spiders? The answer to that question is yes, yes. But would I view those experiences and those opportunities that I had with excitement and with wonder, or would I, too, go, meh? You know, meh is a buzzword of today's generation. It's spelled M-E-H period. M-E-H period. Meh. And in fact, it was actually voted one of the top 20 words that defined the decade of 2000 to 2010.

Apathy defined the decade of 2000 to 2010. It's an expression of boredom. It's an expression of apathy. It's a certain, kind of a certain predictable routine. It's really a non-committal response that doesn't really indicate an opinion one way or the other. Really what it is, it's a verbal shrug of the shoulders. It's a verbal way of shrugging the shoulders. What did you think of the movie? Eh. Where do you want to go to dinner? Eh. It's a method of expressing something that is lackluster or mediocre.

It's a way of stating that you maybe really don't care. Meh is the polar opposite of what we know in the church as zeal. If zeal is the fervor for a person, a cause, or an object, maybe an eager desire for something, then meh is the exact opposite. Meh is a lack of care. It's an indifference for that person, for that cause, for that object, or maybe a lack of desire for something. You know, when we come off of the Feast of Tabernacles, when we come off of those eight days, we are at quite possibly the highest levels of zeal that we will have for the year.

Quite possibly. We have this incredible amount of spiritual momentum as we're coming off of these eight days. We're fired up! We're absolutely fired up! We've had these phenomenal messages. We have just heard. We've met with brethren we haven't seen in ages. We're excited. We've had fun. We've learned about God.

We fellowshiped with our brethren. We've worshipped together. We've studied together, and we've prayed together. And so we wouldn't really expect meh to be a descriptor of how we would describe our Feast experience. But you know, after the Feast, we head home. We head back to work. Here in Oregon, the rain starts. I can't tell you how happy I am that it's not pouring today. It was dumping buckets in Salem as we were leaving today.

The wind picking up really bad. It may be coming, but I am so happy it's not raining today. But the days get shorter. You know, there's more dark time, and life can get kind of meh pretty quick as we go into fall and as we go into winter. As we get back into our routines and as we go into these motions day in and day out, it can be a struggle to keep that fire burning. But brethren, it's extremely crucial that we do. Let's begin today by turning over to the book of Revelation. Go to Revelation 2 specifically. What we're going to do is we're going to take a look at the words that Jesus Christ inspired the Apostle John to record in the book of Revelation, one of those messages to the seven churches.

In this case, we're going to look at the message to the church of Ephesus. Revelation 2. Revelation 2, and we'll go ahead and pick up the scripture in verse 1. Revelation 2, verse 1. Revelation 2, verse 1 says, To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things, says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands, I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil.

And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars. And you have persevered and have patience and have labored for my name's sake, and have not become weary. And you know, with all the different messages to the churches in these sections, most of the churches, there's one, but it starts by kind of stating the things that they've done well, what they can be commended for. In this case, Ephesus is praised for several things.

He says he knows their works. He knows their patience. He knows their labor, what they've done, what their actions that they've done. They can't bear those who are evil. That they, as a church, have tried the apostles that have come that are false, and found them to be liars. And God's praising the church in Ephesus for these things. However, we notice in verse 4, verse 4, nevertheless, despite all of these things, I have this against you, that you left your first love, that you've left your first love.

The church in Ephesus had left their first love. The newness, so to speak, had worn off. Their faith had become routine.

They lost that fire and that zeal that they began with. You know, Mr. Richards mentioned during the announcement section there that, you know, running into people who are brand new into the church, you can't contain them. They're bubbling with just... they are so excited about the truths that they've learned, and they just can't stop talking about it. They're on fire. They're zealous. They're excited. So we look at church in Ephesus as at the time of John's writing, and this kind of paints us a picture of Ephesus in John's time. But let's examine the full arc. Let's rewind a little bit. Let's take a look at Ephesus really kind of at its inception in the beginning. Let's go to the book of Acts. Book of Acts. We're trying to book... Acts 19. Acts 19. We'll see the beginning of Paul's ministry and Ephesus in particular recorded here in Acts 19. Acts 19. And we'll pick it up in verse 1.

Acts 19 verse 1.

Acts 19 verse 1 reads, And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples... it doesn't really say whether Paul is surprised here or not, but says, finding some disciples, he said to them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? So they said to him, We have not. So much is heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. And so, you know, Paul imagines a little bit perplexed there. He says, Well, then into what were you baptized? Well, into John's baptism. Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after him, that is, on Jesus Christ. For Christ Jesus in this reading. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues, and they prophesied. In verse 7, now the men were about 12 in all. So Ephesus had barely humble beginnings. Paul came in following Apollo's work in Ephesus, and he corrected some of the issues. Apollo was one of those guys. He had great zeal. He had a knowledge of the Scripture, but he didn't have a full understanding. He didn't have a full understanding. He was strong in the Scriptures, but at that time he was only aware of the baptism of John when he had come to Ephesus. It's kind of interesting it mentions specifically near the end of chapter 18 in Acts that Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and kind of explained the gospel a little more fully to him. Like, hey, okay, you got some good ideas here, but come here, come here, let's make this make a little more sense here. And so they kind of fully prepared him for his continued work. But Apollo's laid the groundwork for Paul to come in and make great gains in the church in Ephesus. And the church of Ephesus was started really kind of on that day with 12 men, but it grew from there. Let's go to Acts 19 and verse 10, just a little bit further down. It talks about the amount of time. We don't have to necessarily go there, but it tells us specifically that Paul spent two years in Ephesus teaching, and it specifically states that all who were in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus. God worked incredible miracles in Ephesus, and the church grew. The church grew. It grew so much actually, and some of the incredible miracles that were healing of the sick, they were putting out of demons. This is where we get our idea for anointing cloths. It talks about how they were sending aprons, and they were sending different things to him that he would bless and then send back out so people could be healed.

God worked some incredible things in Ephesus, and it grew so much, the church in Ephesus grew so much, that later in Acts 19, we see the silversmiths of the city started getting worried. It was actually growing so much that the silversmiths of the city became concerned over their livelihood. Let's go to verse 23. Acts 19 verse 23. Acts 19 verse 23 says, About that time there arose a great commotion about the way. For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Diana, so he crafts idols. That's his job. It's what he does. He makes money off of making idols and selling them to people traveling through Ephesus. Brought no small profit to the craftsmen. He made a lot of money off of selling these idols. The reason for that is because at that time, in Ephesus, was the temple of Diana or Artemis. It was one of the seven wonders of the world. There were a number of people that passed through. Diana and Artemis was kind of the patron goddess of the city there. It specifically goes on and talks a little bit more in verse 25 here. It says, He called them together with the workers of similar occupation and said, Men, you know that we have our prosperity by this trade. In other words, this is our livelihood. This is how we make our money. Moreover, you also see in here that not only at Ephesus, but throughout almost all Asia, gives us an idea of the scope of what was going on here. This Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are not gods which are made with hands. Paul was making inroads, major inroads, so much so that these guys got worried. They got worried they were going to be put out of business. Verse 27, so not only is this trade of ours in danger of falling into disrepute, but also the temple of the great goddess Diana may be despised and her magnificence destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worship. These guys were worried. They saw a potential end to their careers and to their livelihood and really their way of life. The way was a threat to what they had known before. There were enough people being converted from worship of the goddess Diana who had this, again, massive temple in Ephesus, started kind of moving to this new religion. They really worried. They saw the handwriting on the wall is really kind of what happened. And as they worry, the church in Ephesus continued to grow. We see Paul leaves for a time.

He is imprisoned. He writes the epistle to the Ephesians, which scholars argue whether it's actually written specifically to the Ephesians or not, regardless. It says, Epistle to the Ephesians on the set up. But in that letter, Paul commends the church at Ephesus for its faith and for its love. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, Paul commends the church at Ephesus for its faith and its love. He admonishes them to walk worthy of their calling, to make every effort for unity in all things and to not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. Now, most scholars agree that Ephesians was written in 62 A.D., which is around the time that Paul was imprisoned in Rome. It kind of puts the book of Ephesians in line with the Epistles to the Colossians and also to the Epistle to Philemon, which is similar themes. The book of Revelation, which we read earlier, was likely written a few years before John's death, dating it kind of right around 94 to 96. And as with everything, there's debate on that as well. So we have a letter. If we go by those dates, we have a letter written by Paul to the Ephesians in A.D. 62 that commends them on their love and on their faith. And then we have the book of Revelation written 30 years later that states that they've lost their first love, that they are a loveless church. We're talking a generation, maybe two, between Paul's Epistle and the book of Revelation. 30 years, roughly.

What happened? What happened? You know, we see some clues scripturally. We can kind of get an idea of maybe what was going on. This year should be in Acts 20 still. We haven't changed out of there yet.

Take a look at Acts 20. We get a chance to see this very, very heartfelt passage as Paul gets a chance to speak to the elders of Ephesus kind of one more time, kind of face to face before he was to head to Jerusalem where he would be imprisoned. But Acts 20, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 28. Acts 20 verse 28. Acts 20 and verse 28 says, Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood. Verse 29, For I know this, that after my departure, after I leave, after I go to Jerusalem, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore watch, and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. He warns the elders in the church of Ephesus directly, look, you need to keep watch. You need to feed the flock. You need to watch over it, because these guys are coming. These guys are coming. There will be wolves that will come in amongst you, and will scatter the flock. He even goes as far as telling them, look, you're not even immune. Some of these guys are going to come out of your ranks. They will rise up from your ranks and draw people away. Verse 32 of Acts 20. So now brethren, I commend you to God, or commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. Yes, you yourselves know that these hands are provided for my necessities and for those who are with me.

I have shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he said, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And he kind of warns them, look, focus on service to others. Focus on service to others, supporting the weak, giving rather than receiving. Not focus on building yourselves up, but allow grace to build you up, that they would not become rich off the brethren. Paul makes it a very specific point here to let them know, look, in the time that I was with you, I worked for my own food with my own two hands. I took care of myself. I made sure that I didn't, you know, mooch off of you guys, so to speak, to use a term from today's generation. But verse 36, and when he said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all. Then they all wept freely. They fell on Paul's neck, and they kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship. And it seems, at this point, the men of Ephesus knew this would be the body. They knew that this would be the last time they would see him in person. And, you know, as you look through the rest of Paul's manuscripts and kind of the history, it's very likely that that was the case. Paul was imprisoned soon after. He spent several years in Jerusalem and in Rome in prison. He wrote a whole mess of epistles while he was imprisoned.

Ephesians was one of them. He was released, sort of. He traveled in this final missionary journey before eventually being imprisoned again, and then eventually blamed by Nero for the great fire of Rome and executed in approximately 67 AD. But somewhere along that line, between the writing of his epistle in 62 AD and the book of Revelation, that Ephesus lost their first love. In history, records that by the second and third century AD, very little of the Church of Ephesus remained, that the true believers were either scattered or had gone underground. In fact, Ephesus became a center for the Roman Church at that time. They held a number of councils in and around Ephesus.

So what caused the Church in Ephesus to lose its first love? Whether it was the false teachers or false doctrines that Paul mentioned, whatever it was, something happened between Paul's epistle and the book of Revelation. How did they go from a state of love and faith that Paul admired to a state of just, meh? How do they go from love and faith to meh? And what implications does that have for us today in the modern Christian Church? If you hadn't already guessed it, the title of the message today is, meh. Simply meh. With the time we have remaining today, I'd like to explore these questions and really try to take a look at practical ways that we can keep our zeal and keep our spiritual energy moving forward from the Feast of Tabernacles to ensure that we don't lose our first love, that we don't develop this attitude of indifference and apathy towards our calling. To do that, we'll explore three main causes for apathy today and kind of that meh attitude and where it comes from with a focus on how to practically counter that attitude so that we can remain zealous in our love for God and also for a Christian walk we've been called to live. Those three causes, the three causes of apathy today. Number one, familiarity and routine. Familiarity and routine. Number two, distraction. Number two, distraction. And number three, lack of personal involvement. Familiarity and routine, distraction, and lack of personal involvement. You know, and as I dug into this topic and as I started really digging, I realized you could turn this into a five-part series really, really, really easily, but then I realized no one would care. No one would care. You didn't get it. Oh no, it was a joke about apathy. Good, thank you. It just wasn't a funny joke about apathy. But let's start with familiarity and routine. Have you ever heard a new song that you just loved so much you played it over and over and over and over again?

I remember I had a CD at one point in time that honestly did not come out of my car for probably close to four months. It was in my car and that's about the only thing that I listened to on the, you know, on my car stereo for flying. I'm dead serious. Four months. I listened to that CD over and over and over and over again for four months straight. I loved that CD. I talked it up to everybody that I met. I told them all, oh, this is such a great album. You gotta get, you gotta check this out. Oh, this is so good. Everybody who drove in my car, yep, you're gonna listen to my music. Check this out. These guys are great. I love this. I turned it up, I rolled the windows down, and I sang along for an entire summer. An entire summer. I had a very serious degree of zeal for that CD. I had a fervency for it. I had an eager desire to listen to it. But you know what happened?

Four short months later, the newness wore off. It got rotated out of the CD player. I still enjoy it, but I don't listen to it nearly as much as I used to. You know, occasionally I'll think about it. I'll pop it in for old time's sake. But it's not on the primary rotation anymore. It's kind of an afterthought. I had gotten used to it. It wasn't new anymore. It wasn't fresh. It was old hat. It was kind of, meh. It's not that I didn't like it. It's not that it still wasn't great music. It was just that now it was familiar. Now it was familiar. We do this kind of thing all the time. We do it with a number of things. We do it with music. We do it with movies. We do it with books. My sister watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory one summer every single day for just about three months. I could not tell you how absolutely sick and tired of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory I could possibly be. That girl with the blueberry in her, I just couldn't handle it. But, you know, brethren, if we're not careful, we can let this happen with our faith, too.

And I want to be clear. I am not equating the incredible message of the gospel with something as trivial as a CD. Okay? Please understand. I'm using it as an analogy that the process can be similar. You've heard the old adage, familiarity breeds contempt. Familiarity breeds contempt. And the idea is that generally the more familiar we are with someone or something, the less interested we are or the more frustrated we get with that person or that thing over time.

The more often we see it, the more often we hear it, the more we kind of get less interested in it.

You know, if you turn over to Mark 6, we'll see an example of this idea in Scripture. Slightly different connotations, slightly different contexts, but the general principle is there. Mark 6, and we'll pick it up in verse 1 of Mark 6. Mark 6, verse 1. Mark 6, verse 1, says, and this is talking about Jesus when he went back to his hometown, says, Then he went out from there and came to his own country, and his disciples followed him.

And when the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the synagogue.

And many hearing him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things?

And what wisdom is this which is given to him that such mighty works are performed by his hands? Notice, they saw the works from his hands. They knew what he was capable of doing. They heard the wisdom in the words that he spoke. But then verse 3, here's the familiarity piece. Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James?

Moses, Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? So they were offended at him. They were offended at him. But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house. And verse 5, Now he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. Verse 6, He marbled because of their unbelief. Then he went about the villages in a circuit, teaching the people of Christ's own city, who you might think at first would be the first to accept him home with open arms. Here comes our boy! This is the guy! This is him! He's from our town! Something good did come from Galilee!

His own people rejected him. They couldn't see past the carpenter's son that they grew up with.

How could he be the Messiah? How could he have this wisdom? Where could that have come from? They were so familiar with him, they had seen him so often growing up, that they struggled to have faith in him as the Messiah, as a healer, and as the Son of God. They were offended by him. You know, this isn't an uncommon reaction by families of the people that God has worked with. And keep in mind, Joseph's brother threw him in a well. I mean, like, who are you, man? You know, we're not gonna be upstaged by you. They planned to leave him for dead and then sold him into slavery. So, you know, they were too familiar. They couldn't take it seriously. In Christ's case, they couldn't put their faith in a simple carpenter's boy from a sleepy little town in Nazareth, someone that they'd known forever. In Christ's own words, in verse 4, a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, in his own family, in his own house. Familiarity can breed contempt, or at the very least, it can cause us to take something for granted. It can cause us to take something for granted. They saw Christ, they heard the teachings, they saw his works, and their response was, meh, meh, I'm over it. You know, when we've lived this life and when we've walked this walk for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, does it become commonplace? Does it become something that we just kind of get used to?

You know, are we guilty of losing that first love? Does it become something that we don't talk about as excitably to our friends and our family, something that we just kind of put on the back burner and go through the motions? Do we relegate our faith to a series of rituals and traditions and miss the point? You know, in just two generations, Ephesus lost their first love. It doesn't take long. Two generations. As the initial converts had passed it on to the next generation, that fire began to die down, and it seems, as the fire begins to burn down a bit, as things become familiar, we look for new ways to understand things, new ways to look at things, in an attempt to keep it fresh and to increase our zeal for God. You know, at that point in time in Ephesus, false teachers crept into the church as Paul predicted. They swayed many. Paul knew it would happen. He predicted it would occur. And it's going to happen before the time of the end as well.

Endurance is difficult. Endurance is hard. Keeping that energy and that flame alive for long periods of time is tough. At some point, each day begins to kind of look the same. Mile after mile after mile, it starts to kind of look the same. There's a reason that we compare it to a race. There's a reason we compare it to a race. We have to endure, and endurance can be exhausting. Before we left for the feast, I ran my very first half marathon. And I've been training for this for some time. You know, I got myself ready for it. I was pretty in pretty good decent running shape going into this thing. And man, oh man, that morning I was excited. I'm ready. I've been training for this for three months. Bring on the race. Let's do this. I ran my first six miles in a 930, which I, you know, hey, that's pretty fast for me. But I let the crowd and the excitement and all of that fun and all that all that energy push me faster and faster than I should have. The first six miles were last. The last seven were rough. The last seven were rough. The last seven, it was one foot after the other, and I slogged it out to finish that half marathon. You know, it can be a struggle to not let our faith turn into just religion, to not let it become something, or a series of things that we do, and less what we believe. Let's turn over the book of 2 Peter real quick. Book of 2 Peter. We've been in and around these passages for the last several months as we've been going through, like we've been in Paul's writings for the last couple months on this chronological plan. So, been a lot of Paul going on the last little bit. We're going to Peter this time. So, 2 Peter. Mallory thinks it's hilarious. 2 Peter. And we're going to pick it up in 2 Peter 1 verse 5. And I'm actually going to read this one in the New Living, because I like the translation in the New Living a little bit better on this one.

So, 2 Peter 1 and verse 5. And again, this is in the New Living translation. It'll be maybe slightly different in your own Bibles, but I really like the way it paraphrases the text here. So, 2 Peter 1 verse 5 says, In view of all of this, make every effort to respond to God's promises.

supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and then moral excellence with knowledge. Knowledge with self-control. Self-control with patient endurance. Patient endurance with godliness. Godliness with brotherly affection. And brotherly affection with love for everyone. In that case, agape.

Peter here gives us a flowchart of our faith and gives us kind of a continuum, if you will. It begins with faith. To faith we add moral excellence. To that we add knowledge. To knowledge we add self-control. To self-control, endurance. Sticking with it. One foot after the other, even when it's hard. Slogging it out. Enduring to endurance godliness. To godliness, brotherly love. And from brotherly love, charity, or agape. And again, we look at the end of the road. The end of the road is the goal, and that is agape. The love of God. That's the pinnacle, and that's what we strive for. That's the goal. That's what we're all pointing to. That's what we're all trying to get to. And so, brother, we can keep the fire alive in our life by working on the later stages of that continuum in our lives. And not just academically working on it, but living it. He goes on in 2 Peter 1, verse 8. 2 Peter 1, verse 8 says, The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But those who fail to develop in this way are short-sighted or blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their old sins. Again, new living translation. So dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Do these things and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. If we do these things, if we build upon this foundation of our faith, if we build upon that first love, we'll never fall away. We won't lose it. And that's done through action. That's done through taking what we've learned in our Bible study and in our Sabbath services and getting out of the classroom and putting it to work diligently in our lives each and every day. 2 Thessalonians 3.13, we won't turn there for sake of time, but 2 Thessalonians 3.13 tells us not to grow weary of doing good. Notice the word doing, action word, doing good. Brethren, we need to make sure that we're keeping or working on, rather, keeping the zeal alive in our service to God and our love for our neighbors. We can fulfill the law of God by living it and applying it in both spirit and letter, not just going through the motions, not just academically. The second thing that can cause apathy is distraction. And I'm sure you are fully aware of this, but brethren, our society is really, really, really ADHD. And what I mean by that is they can be looking at one thing and then have a moment of, oh, squirrel, what's going on over here? In fact, I have a joke that I always tell my kids, and I can tell this joke because I have ADHD and I'm qualified to then tell it. But how many people with ADHD does it take to screw in a light bulb? Hey, want to ride bikes?

So that's the way that our society operates. It jumps from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, and never really finishing anything. In fact, we seem to be hardwired and or programmed for short-term memory and instant gratification. We want our fulfillment and we want it right now. And if it takes longer than 30 seconds, forget it. I don't want it anymore. I'm done. My coffee took too long. Never forget it. You keep it. I'm done. I'm not paying for it.

Okay, I'm not interested. Long-term focus, long-term planning. It's non-existent in the majority of the population. We get distracted by things that come down the pipeline and we often forget the very things that we were focused on before. We move from one thing to the next. The rise of slack-tivism is a perfect example. How many of you have heard of slack-tivism? Okay, a few of you guys have. Cool.

For those that are not familiar with the term, slack-tivism is the act of becoming really, really, really zealous about a cause when we first hear about it and then people typically blow it up on social media with a bunch of hashtag campaigns for several weeks. I mean, it just blows up. It trends like crazy. Everybody's talking about it on social media, but no one is taking an active role in doing anything about it. They're saying, oh, hashtag this! But no one does anything about it. No one fixes the problem. No one puts anything together.

They don't take an active role in any of it. You might bring some minimal awareness to the issue through the slack-tivist campaign, but there's no real definitive action to solve the problem. There was an article written on The Daily Beast earlier this month entitled, When Activism is Worse than Apathy that really outlines this concept really well. I'd like to read just a few excerpts. I'm not going to read the whole thing. It's written by Nancy Kapper. I'm going to warn you up front. It has a serious liberal left lane big time, and it's pretty snarky. So I'm just going to throw that out there before I read it. It says, when activism is worse than apathy, the stories that seize our attention often don't stay on our radar for long, leaving us with only a fuzzy memory of doing something when we really didn't help at all. It says, the quaint children's story, Pierre, is a cautionary tale about the perils of indifference. Obstinate Pierre refuses to care about anything, even when a passing lion threatens to eat him. Yes, it's a story for kids by Maurice Sendak, really. Consumed and eventually disgorged, Pierre is restored to his loving parents as it may be banished, and the lion, unlikely though it seems, becomes a family friend, and the story closes with a moral to care. We're not like Pierre. Apathy is not our or isn't our problem. We care. We care a lot. Just being a little sarcastic here. Show us an injustice, and we'll slap a hashtag on it in a hot minute. We may even have a national conversation about it.

And then, ooh, shiny! And we're off to the next outrage. Call it hashtag activism, call it slacktivism. Worse than indifference, it is a transitory, bustling attentiveness that passes so quickly it barely registers, yet leaves in its wake a sense that we've done something. So eyes on the prize, everyone! All the things you've fussed about in the last six months, most of them are still happening. We've just moved on. She talks and spends a little bit of time talking about the Ray Rice situation and how it came out. It blew up. Everybody started talking about domestic violence and women and started having these major, major national conversations, as she puts it, which is just another way of not doing anything. And nothing has happened. She talks about, it says, heads up, no one has brought back our girls. This spring, the terrorist group Boko Haram abducted about 250 Nigerian girls from a school. The plight of the missing girls seeped into the Western consciousness, acquiring a hashtag, hashtag bring back our girls, and celebrity attention.

And briefly, it seemed like a hashtag triumph. Pretty much everyone, everywhere, was outraged. The international community offered assistance. President Barack Obama sent a team of specialists to help the Nigerian government obtain the girls' release. In the immediate weeks following the mass abduction, about 60 girls escaped. Since then, nothing. Talks a little bit about Nigeria's position in this. The fact that the president of Nigeria hired a DC PR firm to try to change the international narrative. She goes on to talk about Ukraine. Yep, still happening. Talking about racism. Yep, still happening. Talking about stolen security data. Yep, still happening. It doesn't matter how many hashtags we put on the problem, it does not fix the problem. And so, there are a lot of things that are still going on in the world that people got really upset about, got really, really zealous about, and demanded change at the time that they were happening.

Some of those weren't on this list, but the war in Syria against Bashar al-Assad. What happened to that? Now we're his ally against ISIS. Russian aggressions against Ukraine, she mentioned that, capture the girls in Nigeria, amongst a number of other things. But what happens as time goes on, as changes don't occur, as other things come down the line, people lose interest in the original topic. What they once had an incredible zeal for now becomes, meh, what's the next big thing?

Unless we kid ourselves, we're programmed in much the same way. We operate in much the same way, and we do need to be cognizant of that. We can't let it become a situation where we allow ourselves to get distracted and move on to the next thing, leaving that first love behind for something else, something like work or entertainment.

Life is busy, life can be hectic, and it can be really difficult to find the time to devote to the proper amount of prayer and study, but we have to find the time. In fact, we have to make the time. We really have to carve it out of our schedule to find the time and make it happen. Acts 19 has the example of the Bereans. We've been there a billion times. I'll just reference it. I'm sorry, Acts 17. I'll just reference it, but you can jot it down in your notes if you'd like. It's Acts 17, 11, and it tells us specifically that the Bereans searched the Scriptures daily, and there's a word in there that I love, with eagerness, that they looked forward to it, and that they did it to prove that what they heard was so.

They did it to prove what they heard was so. You know, and after the feast in 2013, as my wife and I were coming home from Alaska, we kind of recognized after that feast, you know, we really weren't doing a great job in that particular department. We kind of hatched an idea that ended up being very, very fruitful, and one that I'm planning on doing again this coming year, and every year after that at this point.

We established a chronological read-through of the Bible. We thought, you know what? We're just going to do this. We're going to come up, we're going to pick a date, we're going to start, and every day we're going to read our little section that it says to read on the plan, and then in about a year we're done. Okay? It became, to our surprise, something that was just kind of intended to just be us initially, blossoming to like 30 people doing this.

We put together this little Facebook group, and we have a chance to talk. It's been kind of quiet lately, as everybody's been at the feast and trying to catch up and everything else, but it has been so valuable for me to go through the Bible in its chronological order. But what's been even more amazing is that there are like 30 of us reading the same thing at the same time, and the discussions that you can have about it, and the different things that you can kind of discuss.

That part has been beyond valuable. The conversations and the discussions that come from our daily readings have been great. I feel like, truthfully, I feel like this last year, starting at the Feast of Tabernacles in 2013, I feel like I've been able to, for the first time in a long time, carry that zeal from the feast all the way throughout the year, and that's pretty incredible.

Scott Moss, who's a pastor back in the Fort Wayne area of Indiana, discussed that a little bit this feast in Kauai. He suggested buying just that, a one-year chronological Bible, and ensure that you go through that thing once a year, every year from here on. He said, you know, there's times where you'll read a passage and it just won't connect with what's going on in your life, but you know what? Next year, when you read that same passage, whatever you're going through or whatever you're dealing with in your life at that time, could very well be just all about that section.

The more times you go through it, the better it'll be. Let's go over to 2 Timothy 2 real quick. 2 Timothy 2, once again, back to Paul's writings. 2 Timothy 2. 2 Timothy 2, Paul really encourages Timothy the importance of knowing the Scriptures. And we know, in Timothy's case, we know he knew the Scriptures from his youth, but Paul really is kind of encouraging him on how to use it. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15.

2 Timothy 2 verse 15 says, Be diligent, be diligent to present yourself, approve to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. You know, the ESV translation translates it as rightly handling the word of truth. And I like that translation. And the reason I like that translation is it gives a certain mental picture of the word of God as the sword that it is, that you must learn to rightly handle the sword of truth, to properly use it. You know, it takes training to wield a sword effectively.

I think just about anybody can pick up a sword and figure out the basic system, pointy end out, right? I mean, that's kind of, we all intuitively know pointy end out, that's how a sword works. But there's a big difference from pointy end out to someone who is a master with a blade, someone who has had years of training and years of experience in various situations, against various opponents, to become a master with that blade and to feel confident in it.

Rather, we must become masters with the sword of truth. And particularly in an age of half truths, deceptions, attacks on Christianity, we have got to know the word of God intimately. But we've also got to know how it applies to the world around us. And more importantly, be able to discern in our own lives in this difficult environment how to live the way of life we've been called to live.

You know, we can know every scripture in the book and we can play, you know, the little mental sword games where it's basically somebody throws out a passage, you throw out the scripture. But if we're not living it, it's all for naught. It's all for naught.

You know, as we become more familiar with it, as we learn to handle it better, we start to see the application. We start to see how best to use it, when to parry, when to lunge. You know, how to use that Word of God in our conversations and with people as we work. How do we parry? How do we go defensive? How do we go on the attack? We get to kind of notice these opportunities. And the Word of God starts to come alive in our daily lives when we immerse ourselves in it. We immerse ourselves in it and through that Word we learn, we grow in our love and our zeal for God. But we have to actively work to limit the distractions. And in today's day and age, that's tough. There's a lot of distractions out there. But we have to carve out that time for God and refocus our lives to the most important priorities. The last way that apathy can creep in is through lack of involvement. And one surefire way to lose your love for something is to no longer be involved in its workings. I joined a fisheries organization several years ago. And when I joined up, I was all in. I was all in. I went to all the meetings. I joined the board. You know, you show up to some of these meetings and you're on the board the day you show up. Hey, hey, you look like a sucker. Come here. You want to join the board? But no, we worked pretty tirelessly for the goals of that organization until the organization's goals and my own differed significantly. We talked about it. They were heading down a road that I didn't agree with from a conservation standpoint. And despite my efforts to try to change their mind, they kind of refused to see it the way that I did. And ultimately, we kind of had to part ways. But you know, as I became less and less involved, I found I cared less and less about what they were doing and how they were doing it to the point that today, I'll be perfectly honest, what they do barely registers on my radar. Barely registers on my radar. Today, I had little to no interest in the organization's goals. Despite the occasional mailing asking me for money, that's the extent of the relationship. My lack of involvement, my lack of work in that process caused me to step back and get out of the inner workings of the organization.

I quit doing the work, and my love and my zeal for that work slowly died. And I don't think we need to go too far to see the connection. From a spiritual standpoint, if we never really get involved in the work to begin with, if we never really take ownership and recognize the part that God has for us in the work that He's called us to do, we slowly lose our fervor for it. Rather than we were given a commission just as the apostles were given a commission. See it in Mark 16. Let's go to Mark 16. Mark 16. We'll pick it up in verse 15 with the words of Christ. Mark 16, verse 15.

It says specifically, He said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned.

Go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. That was the commission. Go into all the world. Preach the gospel to every creature. That was the commission that was given, both to them and to us. Acts 13 talks about there being a great work that is being worked in these days. We know we're called to do that work. And notice we're called to do that work. Not to have that work done to us. Every one of us are a part of it. Every one of us are a part of this work. We all have a job to do. We live our lives as an example. We preach the gospel. And I got to thinking about this as I was working on this message. How often do we talk of God? How often do we talk of God? How often do we talk of the hope that lies within us? With people that don't believe the same way that we do. The conversation rarely comes up. It rarely comes up. And obviously there's reasons why. And I'm not suggesting that we stand on a street corner with a sandwich board and a bell. I'm not suggesting that in the least bit. But brethren, we have to take the basket off our lamp. We have to take the basket off our lamp. We have to make sure that we're letting that light shine. And that we're turning that lamp up a little bit. And increasing the luminosity coming out of that. But when we're involved in something intimately, we care about it. We love it. We want to see it succeed. We had a sermon at the feast in Kauai that dealt with this topic. And it was an older gentleman. And in it he encouraged the young people to get involved. There was some podium pounding, some loud voices. But he encouraged the young people to get involved, to make the church their own, to buy in, to become involved. And we spoke with a number of the young people afterwards about it. It was kind of interesting. A number of the young people we spoke with were kind of offended. A smidge. And I mean, not so much that they were mad about it by any means. But they felt like in order for them to step up, someone had to step aside. That there just were so many opportunities for service. Someone had to step aside or at least provide that opportunity for service. And they were really quick to say, we don't want anybody to step down. We don't want anybody to step down. Just step to the side, put an arm around us, and say, this is how it's done. Help us to understand how it's done. It's hard to become involved in service if the response to the attempt or the response to the request is, no, this is my service. And we had a situation with someone that we know at one point that had tried very, very hard to get involved in some of the processes with counting offering. And continually it was rebuffed. Continually it was rebuffed. I just went in to open the door, close the door, and said, I'm helping. Period. I'm helping. What can I do? Throw me a couple of envelopes. I'm helping. And it took that to get to the point where they were able to go through that. But we had a really good discussion. I went talk to the speaker a bit later in the feast over this very concept. Because I was curious as to his thoughts. How do we get the younger people involved? Because to my eyes, what I see, there are a lot of young people ready to go. They're there. They're ready. They're involved. In various congregations all over. But it seems sometimes that they're rebuffed. And after a little while, you start after a number of times of asking, can I help? Can I help? Can I help? And hearing, no, no, no, and no. The response is, why ask? Why ask? They're just going to tell me no again.

So he said, and when I talked to him about it, it was, he said, we as a church have to find ways to mentor the next generation. That that is really what has to happen. We have got, you know, when you look at, you look at Kings when Elijah hands Elijah the mantle, you know, it's not, it's not a situation where Elijah dies and then Elijah picks it up like, now what?

You know, he handed it to him and he mentored him for some time. So it's really important that we find ways to mentor the next generation and really to look for ways and give them opportunities to serve and help them to find ways to be involved in this work. Because again, brethren, we are to do a work, not to have a work done to us. And if we only ever talk, this is the other thing that was on my mind as I was working on this, if we only ever talk to people of like mind about the hope that lies within us, are we preaching the gospel?

Are we preaching the gospel at that point? I mean, if we're living our lives, yes, our lives should be an example and people should see it, but we should be able to state to others the hope that lies within us, particularly when we're asked. And I know there have been times in my own life where questions have been asked and I kind of, eh, and didn't take the opportunity. And I missed the opportunity and I should have taken the opportunity. I actually had one at the feast and I took the opportunity this time.

One of the groundskeepers out there said, hey, what are you guys doing? You know, you're a church group in here. And so I took the time to explain what we were doing. And we had a really good conversation about grace versus the law and this and that. And it was like, it was wonderful. And it was kind of one of those things where he goes, well, cool, you know, and he was hanging out the last days we were going into the last great day.

So it was kind of like wave at him and talk to him again. But who knows if that seed's been planted? I don't know. I don't know what God's going to do with that. But brethren, we all have a part to play. Let's go over to Ephesians 4 verse 16. Ephesians 4 verse 16. We'll actually see, this is a passage that was one of the inspirations for our church's vision statement. Ephesians 4 verse 16.

Ephesians 4 verse 16. This is one of those inspirations along with another passage that was kind of what helped craft the vision statement that the church has. This was announced a couple years ago at the GCE. But Ephesians 4 verse 16 says, "...from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causing growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." And we are the body.

We are the body. And we must work together in love to advance the work, to preach the gospel. And if we're involved in that work, if we're doing our part, if we're all in, so to speak, we will be zealous. We will have that love that Paul praised Ephesus for in the book of Ephesians. Brother, we just came off of eight days, a little, well, week or so ago, we just came off of eight days of incredible blessing. God provided us with food in due season.

You know, we had a chance to harvest some of that spiritual food, and hopefully, hopefully, our tanks are full. Our tanks are filled. We're filled up. We're ready to go. We've got the next year ahead of us, and our levels of zeal and our spiritual fulfillment are at probably the highest that they will be this year. Work to keep them. Work to keep them there. Keep that tank full. Work to keep that love.

Keep that zeal as the year progresses. Don't let it fade and do not let meh creep into your life. It's so easy to let meh creep into your life. It's always right there, waiting around the corner, like, hey, it's me! It's always right there. But focus on ways to have a zealous winter. This seems like the cold, dark times of the year, or the hardest of them all, to keep yourself focused and keep yourself going.

But, brethren, come out the other side with the same level of energy that you have now.

Actively work to live the faith that you profess. Put on the godly character of brotherly love in agape. Love God, lover fellow man. Don't allow yourselves to become distracted. Refocus on the things that are important and prioritize.

Focus on the things that last. Lay up that treasure that moth and rust can't destroy.

And lastly, please, remain involved. Remain involved. Mentor others. If there's a way that you can help someone understand a good way for service or an opportunity you can give them, or get involved in some way, help others find opportunity to serve. But own the involvement in your faith. Become a worker. Pre-check gospel and help to do a work. Brethren, I trust you all had a fantastic feast of tabernacles. I am really looking forward to hearing all of your stories from the different places that you were. It's good to be back. It's good to see you guys. We miss you terribly. And we'll see you in a little while.