Meh

Brethren, this feast of tabernacles was a feast of firsts for my family and I. So much of this feast of tabernacles was a feast of firsts. It was our first time on the island of Kauai. We had opportunities to try various foods for the first time. I had never had dragon fruit before. It's a little pink, spiky-looking fruit. You cut it open and it's white and seedy on the inside. It's really good, actually. I'd never had longan, which is another type of fruit they have there. It's this little crispy shell on it. You break the shell away and it looks like an eyeball. Kids loved that. It doesn't taste spectacular, but it looks like an eyeball. So there you go. And I tried poi. It's not spectacular. I'm not a big fan of poi. But we tried it. We gave it a shot. I picked my very first tree-grown avocado. I've never picked an avocado off of a tree before. I realize later it takes a week to ripen, so we didn't get to eat that one until after we'd left. Or until we gave it to the neighbor when we left. But we tried shave ice.

I had sort of learned to boogie board. Really, I kind of learned to fall somewhat gracefully and get slammed by waves. We had our first experience with gigantic flying cockroaches. Huge flying cockroaches. There were screaming, flailing, and swatting, and then my wife suggested I get a shoe. Our roommates had their first experience with a gigantic cane spider. And I'd never seen these things before. It was on our garbage can. It was the size of a salad plate. And it was right by their hand. It freaked them out a little bit. But they texted me that, and I screamed and flailed and went a little nuts on that, too. We went to our very first luau. We were serenaded each morning by wild roosters. For those of you that aren't aware, roosters, domestic chickens, should be the state bird of the island of Kauai. There was a hurricane back in the 90s that took out a chicken processing plant, and they all escaped into the surrounding jungle. And they've been reproducing without natural predators ever since. They're everywhere. Literally everywhere on the island. And so the only natural predators are cars, is about it. So they've been growing unchecked since the mid-90s, yeah. So we had our first experience with a hurricane. Had our first experience with a hurricane. Hurricane Anna just kind of kissed the bottom of the island at the end of the last couple days before we were leaving. And gave us a chance to kind of see some of the wind and the rain and the weather that comes from that. But there were a number of firsts for us and a number of new, exciting experiences. And we recognize that the Feast of Tabernacles is exciting. It's an amazing time. It's an opportunity where we come together with our brethren from around the world. We had people there from New Zealand and from all kinds of other places. But we come together with our brethren from around the world in a place where God has chosen to put His name for us to learn to fear Him. We enjoy the millennial aspects of the location that we attend.

And while the primary focus of the Feast of Tabernacles is spiritual, we do have a wonderful opportunity to experience physical pursuits with our brethren while we're there. The Feast of Tabernacles is a perfect opportunity for new experiences, to try new things. And as a parent, it's incredible to view those new experiences and the Feast of Tabernacles as a whole through the eyes of your children. To have them have an opportunity to see and have an opportunity to experience these things is really, truly amazing.

Case in point, before we went to the Feast in Kauai, the only experience that my children have ever had with the beach is here in Oregon. And as you can imagine, they are two very different kinds of beaches.

Our experience up to that point in Oregon, the kids go to the beach, they're bundled head to toe in wool, they have a scarf, they have hats, they have gloves, and they're still cold. You know, I exaggerate a bit, but it's not hospitable to beach-like activities here in Oregon. It's really not. I know there are a couple people that actually surf on the Oregon coast, but they were really, really amazed that they could jump into the ocean and not chatter the teeth right out of their heads.

The first thing, out of Mallory's mouth, every single morning that we woke up was, go beach, go swimming, go beach, go swimming. I will never forget the smile on Desmond's face when he finally caught his first big wave on a boogie board and managed to ride it to the shore. Or, when he caught his first gecko. He was so excited he caught his first gecko. Nor will I forget when Aiden put on a snorkeling mask for the very first time and put his face in the water and saw a whole new facet of God's creation.

These are memories and moments that I won't forget. With Aiden, he absolutely fell in love with snorkeling. Absolutely fell in love with snorkeling. We stayed, actually, about a block from the beach, so we were really close to the beach. Which was good, because again, no trade winds by about 3 and 4 in the afternoon. The heat was just about with the humidity. It was just about unbearable. So we'd go down to the beach and go down and get in the water and cool off a little bit.

He'd go in, he'd pop his mask on, he'd pop his fins on, he'd pop the snorkel in, he'd jump in the water, and he'd snorkel the same track of water every single day. This little sheltered beach down there called Poipu Beach. But by the time we were ready to go, we'd almost have to pull him out of the water.

He'd found his element. I marveled at this, because that stretch of water again that he was snorkeling, same water, day in, day out. Same rock structure, same basic set up, same fish species. But he never grew tired of it. In the time that we were there, he never grew tired of it. He never seemed to get bored of it.

As I thought about this, and as I realized how much he enjoyed this particular activity, how much he enjoyed snorkeling, it dawned on me that because this was a new experience, because this was something that he had never experienced before. It was all fresh. It was new to him. He was hyper-focused on it. He wanted to do it all the time.

Didn't want to stop. He'd never done it before. And I thought, you know, if this were something that he'd lived around and that he had all the time available to him, is it possible that he could eventually take it for granted? Is it possible that eventually I could ask him if he wanted to go snorkeling and his response would be kind of a noncommittal, eh, I guess.

And it got me thinking about the other experiences that I had. Would I like dragon fruit so much if I ate it all the time? Probably not. Would I boogie board regularly if I lived on Kauai? I mean, who's got the time? Probably not. Let's be honest. Would the rooster still be quaint, or would I loathe their existence? Probably loathe their existence. You know, would the wind and the rain that came from that tropical storm, would that have been interesting? Would it have been exciting, or would it have been a nuisance?

Probably a nuisance. And would I still scream and flail about with the cockroaches and the spiders? The answer to that one is yes. Yes, I definitely would. But would I view these experiences with excitement and with wonder, like I did during the time that I was there? Or would my response also be, eh, you know, meh, M-E-H, is a buzzword of today's generation.

In fact, it was voted one of the top 20 words that defined the decade of 2000 to 2010. It is an expression of boredom. It's an expression of apathy. It's maybe a certain predictable routine. Really what it is is it's a non-committal response that doesn't really indicate an opinion one way or the other. Really, at its core, what meh is is a verbal shrug of the shoulders.

Hey, what'd 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. Really, it's almost a way of stating that you really don't care.

Meh is the polar opposite of what we know in the Church as zeal. It's 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. It's a lack of care or indifference for that person, for that cause, that object, and it's really a lack of desire for something.

When we come off of the Feast of Tabernacles, we are at quite possibly the highest levels of zeal that we will have for the year.

We have had an incredible amount of spiritual momentum coming out of these days. We've just spent eight days with our brethren. We've learned God's way. We've had a chance to fellowship together. We've worshipped together. We've studied together. We've prayed together. And that gives you some serious momentum. And that momentum has got to carry us through for the rest of this year.

And you know, you wouldn't expect meh to be a descriptor when you ask, so, yeah, how was your Feast?

How many times have you ever heard somebody say that after the Feast? Not very frequently. Not very frequently. It happens, but not very frequently. When we head home, though, when we head back to work, when the rain starts, the days get shorter, life can get pretty man, pretty quick.

We get back into our routines. We go through the motions day in, day out, and it can be a real struggle to keep that fire burning. And it's extremely crucial, though, that we do. Let's turn over to Revelation 2 to start with today. Revelation 2. We'll begin today by turning over to Revelation 2. We'll see the words of Jesus Christ inspired the Apostle John to write here in Revelation regarding the messages to the seven churches.

In this case, we're going to take a look at the message to the church in Ephesus. Revelation 2. And we'll pick up the Scripture in verse 1 here. Revelation 2, verse 1. Revelation 2, verse 1 says, As with all of the churches in this section of Revelation, it starts by stating what they've done well. This is also one of the ways that you do parent-teacher conferences. When you're going to have a rough conference, you start out by telling the parent, Here's all the things that your kid does great. Then you drop the hammer. And then you say, Now this is what needs to be fixed. That's kind of along the lines of what's going on here. And in this case, Ephesus is praised for several things. He says, Look, I know your works. I've seen your actions. I've seen what you do. I know your patience. I know your labor. And I know that you can't bear those who are evil. He mentions that they as a church have tried the false apostles who have come to them. He tried them and they found them to be liars. God's praising them in Ephesus for these very things. However, in verse 4, the hammer drops.

You know, the church in Ephesus had left their first love. The newness had worn off. Their faith had become routine. They lost that fire and they lost that zeal that they began with. And this paints us a picture of the church of Ephesus in John's time. But let's examine the full arc. Let's rewind a little bit and take a look at Ephesus at its beginning. Let's go to Acts 19.

Let's go to Acts 19 because we can see kind of where we're at now. This is during John's time that the book of Revelation is written when Christ gives John that revelation. Let's go back to Paul. We'll go back to Acts. We'll be in Acts 19. We'll see the beginning of Paul's ministry in Ephesus recorded here. Acts 19, and we'll pick it up in verse 1. Acts 19 and verse 1. Acts 19, verse 1, says, You know, Paul came in following Apollos's work in Ephesus correcting some of the issues. Apollos had great zeal. He was on fire. He was excited. But he didn't have a full understanding. He wasn't quite there. He had an understanding of where John was at. And he was strong in Scripture. But he was only aware of the baptism of John when he came to Ephesus. We see Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and explained the gospel more fully so that he was able to be a little more effective in his work later. But Apollos had laid the groundwork. And so when Paul came in, he was able to make great gains in Ephesus. The Church of Ephesus began on that day with 12 men. That was it. 12. But it grew from there. Let's go to Acts 19, verse 10. Acts 19, verse 10 says, We see in Acts 19.10 Paul spent two years of work in Ephesus teaching so that all in Asia Minor heard the word of the Lord Jesus.

God worked incredible miracles in Ephesus. This is where we get the example of anointing cloths. People would send scraps of fabric to Paul to bless and then take it back and people would be healed. They'd have demons removed from them. Incredible things were worked in Ephesus. The Church continued to grow. In fact, it grew so much. Later in Acts 19, we see the silversmiths of the city became concerned over their own livelihood.

Let's go to verse 23. Verse 23 of Acts 19.

Acts 19 and verse 23 says, So here, Demetrius is a little bit worried.

Demetrius' job here, what he does for a living, is he makes little silver idols of the goddess Diana, also known as Artemis. In fact, there is a temple that is the Temple of Artemis, or the Temple of Diana, that was located in Ephesus, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Huge temple. People came from all around to come to this temple. Demetrius is one of these guys who gets rich off of selling almost little souvenir trinket idols of Diana here at this temple. So he says, verse 25, These silversmiths are worried. They see their livelihood, their way of life, to a certain extent their religion being destroyed by the Christianity that Paul is spreading. It was that pervasive. That's what I want to get the point across here. That it was so pervasive, people were worried about their livelihoods at this point in time.

So, verse 27, The craftsmen of Ephesus were seriously concerned. They saw a potential end to their careers, to their livelihood, and to their way of life. There were enough people being converted from the worship of the goddess Diana at this time. We had that, again, that giant temple in Ephesus, to this new religion that they began to worry. They saw the handwriting on the wall. But as they worried, the church in Ephesus continued to grow. Paul leaves for a time. He is imprisoned, writes his epistle to the Ephesians. There's some debate as to whether or not that particular epistle was written directly to the Ephesians, or whether it was kind of a more churches of Asia minor-wide sort of thing. Be that as it may, the letter that Paul writes commends the church at Ephesus on their faith and on their 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, despite all that they agree on, these scholars, most of them agree that Ephesians was written in 62 AD, during the time that Paul was imprisoned in Rome, which puts the book of Ephesians in line with the Epistle to Ephesians of Colossians, and also to Philemon, written about the same time. Similar themes, if you look at them. The book of Revelation, on the other hand, was likely written a few years before John's death, which would date it at about 94 to 96 AD. So we have a letter that Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus at AD 62, which commends them on their love and on their faith. And we have a revelation given approximately 30 years later that states that they lost their first love. Thirty years. We're talking a generation, maybe two generations tops, between Paul's epistle and the book of Revelation. What happened? What happened? We see some clues spiritually, or scripturally, sorry. Acts 20. We'll go back to where we're at here. Acts 20. When Paul left and headed to Macedonia, traveling through different parts of Greece, he appointed elders in Ephesus to kind of shepherd the flock in that area. And those elders were called to him in Acts 20. We'll see actually very heartfelt passages. Acts 28. Extremely heartfelt passage. As Paul kind of speaks with these elders one last time before he was to head to Jerusalem for the feast. And he knew he would be imprisoned at that point in time. But Acts 20 will pick it up in verse 28. Acts 20 verse 28.

Verse 29.

He warns the elders here directly, look.

Keep watch. Feed the flock, but watch over it. Because after I leave, wolves are coming in, and they're not going to spare the flock. They're going to scatter you. They're going to destroy the flock. And he said even they're not immune. He told them flat out that among their ranks people would rise up and draw people away. Verse 32. Verse 32 says, Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities and for those who are with me.

And 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. So he warns them, focus on your service to others. Support the weak. Give rather than receive. Don't focus on building yourself up, but allow the grace of God to build up the church and build themselves. Warns them not to become rich off the bread. In fact, he makes a point to let them know that in the time that he was with them, his own two hands earned his livelihood.

Paul was a tentmaker. He earned his way through while he was there. One in verse 36. Verse 36 says, Most of all, for the words which he spoke, that they would see his face no more. And they accompanied him to the ship. It seems the men in Ephesus at this point knew that this was going to be goodbye. That this was the last time that they would see him face to face. And as you look through the rest of Paul's manuscripts and through history, it's likely that was the case.

Paul was imprisoned soon after when he arrived in Jerusalem. He spent several years there and then was transferred to Rome. Wrote a mess of epistles during that timeframe. Lots and lots and lots of writings. Ephesus was one of them. Ultimately, he was released. He traveled his final missionary journey before eventually being imprisoned again and then blamed by Nero for the great fire of Rome, to which he was beheaded at 67 AD. Somewhere along the line, however, from AD 62 to somewhere in the mid-90s AD, Ephesus lost their first love. History records by the second and third century AD, very little of the Church of Ephesus even remained.

The true believers were scattered or they'd gone underground. Ephesus actually became a center for the Roman Church, the Roman Catholic Church at that time, which held a number of councils there.

So what caused the Church in Ephesus to lose its first love? Whether it was the false teachers, whether it was the false doctrines that Paul mentioned, 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... How do we go there? What implications does it have for us today in the modern Christian Church? In case you hadn't guessed it already, the title of the message today is MEH. With the time that we have remaining today, I'd like to explore these questions and look at practical ways that we can kind of counter that attitude, kind of keep our zeal and our spiritual energy moving forward from the Feast of Tabernacles to ensure that we don't lose that first love and ensure we don't lose that zeal.

Also, that we don't develop an attitude of indifference or apathy towards our calling. And to do that, we'll explore three main causes for apathy. And really, that kind of MEH attitude that people have today. And focus on how to practically counter it so we can remain zealous in our love for God and with our Christian want. Those three causes are, number one, familiarity and routine. Familiarity and routine. And it's not all bad, don't get me wrong, but familiarity and routine can have an effect. Number two, distraction.

One of those causes can be distraction. And then the third one is lack of personal involvement. So, familiarity and routine, distraction, and lack of personal involvement. So we'll start with familiarity and routine. And I'm going to use an example that I hope...

I think some of you guys may be able to relate to. If any of you ever heard a new song that you loved so much, you played it over and over and over and over and I'll stop. I remember I had a CD at one point that didn't come out of my car's CD player for probably four months straight. Dead serious. That thing was in my CD player for close to four months. I listened to it over and over and over again for probably four months straight.

I loved, absolutely loved that CD. I talked it up to everybody that I met. I was so excited about it. Everybody I talked to, oh, you've got to hear this. Oh, it's amazing. You've got to check this out. I introduced it to everyone I drove around in my vehicle during those four months because that was all that was on.

So if you're going to ride with me, this is what we're listening to. I rolled the windows down. I sang along to that album for an entire summer. I had a serious degree of zeal for that CD.

I had a fervency for it. I had an eager desire to listen to it all the time. 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 near like I used to. Occasionally, I'll think about it. I'll pop it back in kind of for old time's sake. But it's not on the primary rotation anymore. It's on the back burner. It's an afterthought. I'd 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's just that now it was familiar. And we do this all the time with a number of different things. We do it with music. We do it with movies. My sister once watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for an entire summer. Every day for an entire summer. She loved that thing. And I don't think to this day I don't think she can handle sitting down and watching it just too many times.

Books. We do it with books. We do it with activities. We do it with hobbies. And if we're not careful, we can do it with our faith. And I want to make absolutely certain I am not equating the gospel to a CD. I'm not going to try to cheapen the gospel by equating it to a CD. In the coming six months, I'm going to be talking about the advantages and weaknesses of how we start with something so excitedly and then slowly lose interest to be the same.

Let's turn over to Mark 6 real quick. You all have heard the adage, familiarity and breath, contempt. The idea is that the more familiar we are with something or someone, maybe the less interested or frustrated we can become with them over time. More often we see something, the more often we hear something, the less interested we can be. Let's go over to Mark 6. We'll see an example of this idea in Scripture.

Mark 6. We'll pick it up in verse 1. Mark 6, verse 1. We'll read through verse 6. Mark 6, verse 1, says, Then he went out from there, this is Christ coming back to his own hometown, Then he went out from there, and came into his own country. And his disciples followed him. And when the Sabbath had come, he began to teach in the synagogue.

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?

Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, 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. Verse 5, Now he could do no mighty works there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people, and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. Then he went about the villages in a circuit, teaching. You know, the people of Christ's own city, who you might think at first would have been the first to accept him, with open arms, rejected him outright. They couldn't see past the carpenter's son. They couldn't see past that little kid that was running around, you know, doing whatever, as he was growing up. How could he be the Messiah? How could... where did his wisdom come from? This is just the carpenter's son.

Thank you. That's okay. I hadn't even looked yet. But how could he be the Messiah? You know, they were so familiar with him. They were so familiar with him. They'd seen him so much growing up. They struggled to have faith in him as the Messiah. They struggled to see him as a healer, as the Son of God. They were offended by him. And you know, this isn't an uncommon reaction from the families of people that God has worked with throughout the year. You know, Joseph's brothers threw him in a well. I mean, this is not an uncommon reaction. It's like, oh, you? God's working with you? Yeah, go in the well. So this isn't an uncommon thing. They were too familiar. They were too familiar. It was impossible for them to take him seriously and see him for what he really was. In Christ's case, they couldn't put their faith in a simple carpenter's boy from a sleepy little town of Galilee. A sleepy little area of Galilee. In fact, the little old saying that nothing good comes from Galilee. I mean, they couldn't believe that the Messiah could have been from there. You know, in Christ's own words, a prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own family, and in his own house. Familiarity can breed contempt. Or at the very least, it can cause us to take something for granted. You know, and to just take something for granted. They saw Christ. They heard his teachings. They saw his works. In fact, they mention it in verse 3, 4, 2. 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? They saw him doing them.

They knew what he was capable of doing. But yet they saw all these things, and they went, meh, I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. When we've lived this life, and when we've walked this walk for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years, does it become commonplace? Does it become something that we get used to, quote-unquote? 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 put on the back burner? We don't turn the heat off on the burner, but we might put it on the back burner. You know, put it behind us a little bit. Do we go through the motions? Do we relegate our faith to a series of rituals and traditions and miss the point? In two generations' time, Ephesus lost their love. In two generations, max, 30 years, as the initial converts had passed it on to the next generation, that fire began to die down. And it seems as that fire begins to burn down a little bit, as things become familiar, we look for new ways to understand things, new ways to look at things, and attempt to keep it fresh, to keep it new, and to increase our zeal for God. You know, false teachers crept into the church in Ephesus and swayed many.

Paul predicted it was going to happen. He told them for years it's going to happen.

And it's going to happen again before the time of the end as well. You know, endurance is difficult. Endurance is hard. Keeping that energy and that flame alive for long periods of time is tough.

It's tough. Each day begins to look the same. Mile after mile after mile, it's one foot in front of the other. There's a reason that our journey is compared to a race. We have to endure, and endurance can be exhausting. I, you know, I just, October 5th, I ran my half marathon, I've been training for forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever. It seemed like forever.

And, you know, it was kind of interesting. I ran it. I started out strong. I was excited. Everybody's everybody's all excited and hopped up at the at the beginning of the start line. Everybody's getting ready to go. And I probably ran my best 10k of my life. Ran the first 6.2 miles just fantastically. The last seven were miserable. Absolutely miserable. I started out too fast. I didn't keep and I didn't run my pace. I didn't run for endurance. I was so excited that I just wanted to go out and go.

And I'll tell you, the last seven miles was one foot in front of the other, slogging it out. There was nothing enjoyable. There was nothing fun. The last seven miles were misery. Really truly. I'd love to tell you otherwise, but it's not, it was misery. The last seven. You know, it's one of those things where you slog it out, mile after mile, one footstep after the other, your brain's screaming at you to stop. And you just have to tell it to be quiet and move forward. But endurance can be exhausting and it can be a struggle to not let our faith turn into just religion, to turn into a series of things that we do and make it less about what we believe and who we really are. Turn over the book of 2 Peter. Book of 2 Peter. We're going to see kind of the Apostle Paul's, or Apostle Paul, I'm sorry, Apostle Peter's thoughts on this particular topic.

So 2 Peter, and we're going to read, we're going to pick it up in 2 Peter 1. We're going to read verse 5. And I'm going to read it actually in the New Living Translation. I'm in 2 Corinthians. That's not going to do us any good. 2 Peter 1 and verse 5. And again, this is in the New Living Translation. I like the way that this one paraphrases this particular text. So 2 Peter 1, verse 5. We're going to read through verse 7. 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 moral excellence with knowledge. Knowledge with self-control, self-control with patient endurance.

Patient endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, brotherly affection with love for everyone. Peter gives us a flowchart to our faith.

This adds to this, adds to this, adds to this. It's kind of a continuum, if you will. You can look at generally where you're at on this thing pretty easily. It begins with faith.

Then it moves on to moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, endurance. To endurance godliness, godliness, brotherly love. And then from brotherly love, charity or agape.

Agape, that love of God, is the pinnacle. That's what we're striving towards. That's the end result and the goal of this progression of our faith, is getting to the point where we can love all as God loves us. That's what the rest points to, that godly love. And brethren, we can keep that fire alive by working on the later stages of that continuum in our lives. Not just academically, but living it. He goes on in verse 8. He goes on in verse 8, 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. Verse 10, So dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those that God has called and has 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 outlined in these three small passages, we build on that foundation of our faith, build upon that first love, we will not fall away. That's done through action. It's done through taking what we learn in our own personal Bible study, in our Sabbath services, getting it out of our classroom, getting out of the classroom, and working diligently to put into play in our lives what we've learned, making it happen, being doers of the word. 2 Thessalonians 3, 13, we won't turn there, but it tells us not to grow weary of doing good. Focus on the word doing. Not to grow weary of doing good. It's a verb. Getting out there and making it happen. We need to make sure that we're working on keeping that zeal alive in our service to God and for our love for our neighbor, fulfilling that law by living it and applying it, both spirit and the letter. Not just going through the motions, not just academically. That's one way that we can counter that attitude of apathy and that concept of man. The second thing that we'll take a look at today is distraction.

Our society, in case you don't already know this, is very ADHD. We hop from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, and we jump all over the place. And we seem to be hardwired or programmed for short-term memory and instant gratification. We want our fulfillment right now, and if it takes longer than 30 seconds, forget it. I don't want it anymore. I'm not interested. Long-term focus, long-term planning really is somewhat non-existent in the majority of our population. And folks, I hate to tell you it's getting worse with every passing grade level that I teach. Every year's kids seem less and less capable of paying attention for longer periods of time. Honestly, right now, my eighth grader is about 10 minutes. 10 minutes tops, and they're off to the next thing. Great question. Great question. I mean, realistically, that's what we're dealing with. That's what we're looking at right now. And so our population is, we get distracted easily by things that come down the pipeline. We often forget the very first thing that we were focused on before. You know, we start out with this thing, and then 10 minutes later, oh shiny, I gotta do this thing over here. And so we move from one thing to the next, and the rise of what's called slacktivism is a perfect example. You guys ever heard of the term slacktivism? Okay, let me define it for you. Slacktivism is the act of becoming really, really, really zealous about a cause or some kind of, I don't know, yes, something, right? Yeah, music. When we first hear it, and then absolutely blowing it up on social media, absolutely blowing it up. So like Twitter, Instagram, things like that, absolutely blowing up the cause. Trying to raise awareness, trying to get everything going, trying to change the world. We throw a hashtag on the front of it, and we call it fixed.

But the problem is no one ever takes an active role to actually fix it. They throw a hashtag on the front of it, they share a few Twitter status updates, and whatever else, and then by the time that's done, you might bring a little bit of awareness to the issue. You might bring a small amount, but nobody really does any definitive action to fix it. There's actually an article written on the online news source, The Daily Beast, earlier in October that is entitled, When Activism is Worse than Apathy. That outlines this concept very well, and I want to read just a few excerpts from it today. I'm going to warn you up front. One, it's written from a very left leaning standpoint, and two, the person is very snarky. So I'm just going to throw that out there.

It says, When Activism is Worse than Apathy. It says, the stories that seize our attention often don't stay on our radar for very long, leaving us with only a fuzzy memory of doing something when we didn't really 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. Consumed and eventually disgorged, Pierre is restored to his loving parents. The lion, unlikely though it seems, becomes a family friend, and the story closes with a moral. Care. According to the author, we're not like Pierre. Apathy isn't our problem. We care. We care a lot. 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, we're on to the next outrage. Call it hashtag activism. Call it slacktivism. Worse than indifference, it's 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 were fussing about in the last six months, most of them are still happening. We've all just moved on. So the first point she makes is, says, less than a mile from my house, more than 60,000 football fans gathered Sunday to watch the Buffalo Bills beat the Detroit Lions. Yet less than a month ago, the country was having a national conversation, driven by the revelation that the NFL officials had likely seen a security tape of former Baltimore Ravens running back, Jerry Rice, punching his wife in the face. You may remember the big blow-up on the news about that. There was a huge hashtag campaign on Twitter. There was a whole bunch of other stuff, but he's still an employee of the NFL. He will likely continue to play. Nothing happened. People got mad. People got upset. They shared statuses and tweets and all kinds of stuff. Nothing changed. Number two. 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 Western consciousness, acquiring a 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 released. As of the writing of this article, only 60 have been found. Since then, nothing more.

Number three. Ukraine? Yep. That's still happening. Number four. Also still happening. Racism. She goes on and on and on and on to show that the things that we get outraged about, the things that we're extremely zealous about from the very, very beginning of things, as time wanes and as we get distracted by the next outrage, we put it on the back burner and we forget about it. You know, there are a lot of things still going on in the world that have just passed by the overall collective radar of everyone that's out there that got mad about it the first time. There are a number of things. But what happens as time goes on, as changes don't occur, as we don't fix it, as things continue, other things come down the line. People lose interest in the original topic. What they once had an incredible zeal for now becomes very, eh, whatever. What's the new thing? What's the new thing I can get upset about? What's the new thing that I can do? Unless we kid ourselves, we're programmed in much the same way. And we do need to be cognizant of that. You know, 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, something like entertainment, or a whole host of other things. But we all know life is busy. We all know life can get hectic. It can be very difficult to find the time to pray and study. But we need to find the time. More important than finding the time, we need to make the time. We simply need to carve it out of our schedule and say, this hour right here, this is God's. Nobody else. This is God's. I'm giving this one. Acts 19 gives us the example of the Brians. We won't turn. Or, I'm sorry, Acts 17 gives us the example of the Brians. We won't turn there. We've been there dozens of times before, but that's the one place in the Bible that we see a really good example of what Bible study really kind of should be. And it mentions in Acts 1711 that they searched the Scripture daily. Daily, number one, and two, with eagerness, with an excitement to find out if what they had heard was true. There's an example of first love.

Daily with eagerness. You know, after the feast in 2013, so not this year, but last year, coming home from Alaska, my wife and I realized and kind of recognized that we needed to do a much better job in this department in our lives. We hatched an idea that's been very fruitful and one that I'm planning on doing again this coming year and every year after that. What we decided to do is we decided when we first came back, the month of October was there, and because of the number of days in October, we thought, well, it equals the amount of days in proverbs. So there were 31 days in 31 proverbs. So we did a proverb a day, and then we talked about it. So we were both studying the same thing at the same time, and it was pretty incredible what we were able to get out of that. We didn't want that to end, so we started kind of thinking as we got towards the end of it, well, what else can we do here? What's some other things that we can figure out? And so I came across some chronological reading plans online, and so we said, all right, we're going to do it. We're going to go through it. We're going to read chronologically, you and I, same passages each day so that we can go through and we can talk about it. It'll take us a year. We'll get through the whole entire Bible, and then we can go through and we can discuss it. Well, that just recently ended, made it all the way through, and not just us, but as we mentioned it to other people, like, hey, we want to do that too. Hey, we want to do that. Pretty soon we had 30 people or so doing the same thing at the same time, and it really was amazing. The value of it was incredible. You'd run into people that were reading the same thing you were reading all week long, and so it would be a simple... The conversation started with, what'd you get this week? And it was after that, you'd look up at it 45 minutes to an hour later, and it's incredible what we were able to put together with this. I was really appreciative that so many people were interested in doing that.

We'll throw it out there. If anybody's interested in doing it, we're going to start again on January 1. I can get you information if you want to do that, but we're going to start again on January 1 and go through it again. Actually, Scott Moss... I don't know if any of you guys know Scott Moss from back east. He gave a sermon at the feast in Kauai that suggested doing it yearly. His reasoning was, you may go through something one year that you read a passage and you're just like, I don't get it. It does not make sense to me, but the next year you could have had a different set of circumstances in your life, and all of a sudden that passage just speaks to you for whatever reason.

Going through it with a number of our brethren has been beyond valuable. Conversations and discussions that have come from that has been great. I feel like this is one of the first years in a long time where I've been able to keep that zeal from feast to feast, and it's just been able to kind of carry through, which has been really, really nice. Let's go to 2 Timothy 2.

Paul encouraged Timothy of the importance of knowing the Scriptures, and we know that in Timothy's case he did. We know that it mentions specifically that he knew the Scriptures from his youth, so he was trained in these things from when he was a kid. But Paul really is encouraging him how to use it, which is kind of cool. And I like the way that this particular passage mentions this. It's 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 15 says, Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Now the ESV translates that as rightly handling the word of truth. Rightly handling the word of truth. And I like that translation a lot, because what it gives is a certain mental picture of the word of God as the sword that it is. That you must learn to rightly handle that sword. That you must learn to properly use it. And you know, it takes training to wield a sword effectively. I think any of us could pick up a sword and kind of get the basics of it, you know, pointy end out. I mean, that's kind of the general gist of how to use a sword.

But it takes years of training, years of experience in various situations for a person to become a master with a blade and to feel confident in it. And brethren, we have to become masters of that sort of truth. We have to, particularly in an age of half-truths, deceptions, attacks on Christianity, it's imperative that we know the word of God intimately. But also we need to know how it applies to the world around us. And more importantly, be able to discern in an increasingly difficult environment how best to use that sword. When to parry and when to lunge. When we go on the little bit of defensive and look for that opening or when we attack. And sometimes it feels like when we talk to people that are outside of our church organization, sometimes it feels like just hack, hack, just smash them over the head with it. And as you well know, that's not necessarily effective. You've got to look for that opening. And I think that's that discernment in how to rightly handle that word of truth. And as we become more familiar with it, as we, you know, learn to handle it better, we see the application. We see how God's word comes alive in our daily lives. How we can immerse ourselves within it. If you think about how you learn a language, you learn it through immersion. It's the way you learn a language. You plant yourself in whatever country you're trying to learn and you just put up with it until you know the language. It's kind of the way that it works with our Bibles as well. We have to immerse ourselves in it. So we have to actively work to limit the distractions. We have to carve out the time for God. And we have to refocus our lives to those most important priorities. The last point today on dealing with the things that cause this attitude of apathy is a 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 a few years ago. I like to fish. Most of you know that. And it's a conservation organization. And when I joined up, I was all in. All in. I went to all the meetings. I joined the board. You show up. They put you on the board. I didn't take much to join the board. I worked tirelessly for the goals of this organization until the organization's goals in my own differed enough. They were heading down a road from a conservation standpoint that I didn't agree with. And despite my efforts to kind of work things in the right direction, or in my mind the right direction, it wasn't going to happen. So we had to part ways. As I became less and less involved, I found that I cared less and less about what they were doing. Funny how that works.

And frankly, how they were doing it, to the point that today what they do barely registers on my radar. I have little organ or little interest in the organizational goals. And despite the occasional mailing asking me for money, that's the extent of our relationship today.

My lack of involvement caused me to step back and get out of the inner workings of the organization. In other words, I quit doing the work, and my love and my zeal for that work slowly died. I don't think we need to go too far to see the connection. From a spiritual standpoint, if we never get involved in the work to begin with, if we never take ownership and recognize our part in the work that God has called us to do, we will slowly lose our fervor for it. Brethren, we were given a commission just as the apostles were. We'll see it in Mark 16. Let's turn over to Mark 16. These words were not just for the apostles, they're for us as well. Mark 16. Mark 16. We'll pick it up in verse 15. Mark 16. Verse 15. Under a title of the Great Commission.

Mark 16, verse 15 says, And 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. The commission that was given was to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And that's the same commission that we've been given. Acts 13 told us that there was a great work that's being done in those days, and we know that we're called to do a work also in these days. Notice, though, we're called to do the work. We're called to do the work, not to have the work done to us. We're called to do the work. Every one of us are a part of that work. We all have a job to do. We all live our life as an example. You hear sometimes I've heard the best sermon is seen, not heard. We've seen an example of someone's life. You know, how often do we talk of God? How often do we talk of that hope that lies within us with people that don't believe the same way as we do? I'm not saying we should stand on a street corner with a sandwich board and a bell. I mean, I'm not. But, brethren, we have to take the basket off of our lamp. We have to work to let our light shine. Realistically, you know, if we only ever talk about what we believe in the hope that lies within us with people that believe the same thing, are we really preaching the gospel?

I don't think we are. I don't think we are. If we're only ever talking to people that have that have the same agreement that we do, we're not we're not getting anywhere from that standpoint.

When we're involved in something intimately, we care about it. We love it. And we want it to succeed. We had a sermon at the feast in Kauai that dealt with this very topic. And in it, the speaker encouraged the young people to get involved. He was very excited about it. Get the church, the church, make the church your own. Buy in, get involved, step up, you know. And I spoke with a number of young people afterwards about that message.

And it was kind of interesting. A number that I spoke with were actually kind of offended a little bit by it. And that was interesting to me. I didn't I wasn't offended by it. It just was kind of interesting. But they felt like in order for them to step up, someone has to step aside. That they have to have opportunities to step up into in order to be able to serve or to provide those opportunities for service. They were very quick to say they don't want anybody to step down, but step to the side.

Put an arm around their shoulder and say, hey, here's how this works. Mentor them. Because it's hard to become involved in service if the response to your attempt is, no, my service. We had a situation in our church area where somebody had been rebuffed a number of times working on counting the offering. Wanted to be able to just help out. And time and time again, it was like, nope, nope, nope. He finally just opened the door and walked in and sat down in front of one of the machines and said, all right, what do I do?

And they did at that point, I think they were so bewildered. They just, uh, well, here, type these in. And so he kind of had to, but it took him almost forcing himself into that opportunity to get there. But I talked to the speaker that had given that message after, uh, afterwards. We had a really good discussion about it. Just kind of generally what he felt would be the most effective process. And he felt mentoring is the best way to go. And so, you know, as you're looking around and as you see young people, you know, um, even little kids, little, little kids, they can help put up chairs.

They can help move things. They can help. Um, one of the ones we do with our, with, uh, our boys there is we have them help pull up the blue tape, uh, that we lay the cords down with. Just one way that they can kind of get involved and that they can help. And they're going to remember that. They're going to be involved. They're going to know, oh, I have to go pull the tape.

That's a very important job. I have to pull the tape. And so it's one of those things where we, we get them involved early and, and help them to understand that this is theirs, that this same church is theirs. So we as a church have got to find ways to mentor the next generation. We've got to. Oh, we've got to. I mean, we're getting up there, you know, and I put myself in that same thing. I mean, I'm, I'm getting older every year, just like everybody else is. So, um, we've got to give opportunities for people to serve and help them find ways to become involved. Again, we're to do a work, not to have a work done to us.

And again, I mean, think about this as you go through your, through your week. If we only ever talk to people, if we only ever talk to people who agree the same way as we do, are we preaching the gospel? You know, I've been thinking about that a lot lately, and how can I do? I actually had a situation at the feast.

We were outside having a picnic lunch in between the, one of the double services, and everybody had already gone back in, and Mallory and I were out throwing little kukui, kukui fruits. And, um, this, this, one of the guys that worked there at the college came up and taught, hey, what are you guys doing? You know, what are you guys here for? We said, oh, we're here for church. You know, we're keeping the feast of tabernacles.

Oh, yeah, I know about that. And so we talked a little bit, and we had like a 10-15 minute conversation on law and grace. It was just one of those moments that just dropped out of nowhere. And it's like, we have to take those opportunities. We have to just kind of, I mean, I could have just went, oh, well, we're here for church. Bye. Have a good day. But it just, it naturally evolved into something more. So we all have a part to play. Let's go to Ephesians 4, verse 16. Ephesians 4, verse 16.

Ephesians 4, verse 16. We'll actually see a passage. This was one of the inspirations of the church's vision statement, the new vision statement. But Ephesians 4, verse 16.

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, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. Brethren, we are the body. We must work together in love to advance the work. To preach the gospel. And if we are involved in this work, if we are doing our part, if we're all in, so to speak, we will be zealous because we'll want to see it succeed. It's something we're intimately involved in. We will have that love that Paul praised Ephesus for in the book of Ephesians. Brethren, we've just come, you know, last month came off of eight days of incredible blessings. You know, incredible blessings. God provided us with food and dew season. You know, we've harvested that spiritual food and our tanks are full. And they're more full now than they will be the remainder of this year.

Our levels of zeal and our spiritual fulfillment are at the highest that they'll be all year long.

Work to keep them. Work to keep them. Work to keep that love and that zeal as the year progresses. You know, don't let it fade. Don't let meh creep into your life. Focus on ways that you can have a zealous winter. Come out of the other side of these dark and dreary and rainy months with the same level of energy that you have now. You know, we've got to actively work to live the faith that we profess. We've got to put on that godly character of brotherly love and agape, loving God and loving our fellow man. We can't allow ourselves to become distracted. Refocus on the things that are important and prioritize. Especially focus on those things that are important and that last. Lay up our treasure where moth and rust can't destroy. And then lastly, remain involved. Remain involved. Mentor others. Help others find opportunities to serve and own your own involvement in faith. Become a worker. Preach the gospel and do a work. Brother and I hope you all had a fantastic Feast of Tabernacles. Looking forward to hearing all about it this afternoon after services and we'll see you next time we're down.