Wake Up, Church! Awaken Our Commitment Series

Lack of commitment is something that runs rampant in our world today.

People do not truly stand for anything or are even truly committed to anything. They are blown around like fall leaves in a windstorm, swirling around, going this way and that.

(Chameleon Commitment

By Neal Gracey

Copied from Sermon Central)

Poet Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy tells of an explorer who brought back a chameleon which his household affectionately named Billy the Lizard. The explorer left Billy in the charge of his butler, who showed him to his many friends and associates. When the explorer returned, he asked how Billy was.

"Well, sir," said the butler, "it was like this. We put Billy on the green rug he turned green as Ireland. We put him on the red rug he turned as red as Russia. Then some fool put him on a patchwork quilt, and poor Billy burst into a million pieces."

Kennedy writes: "The world we live in is a patchwork quilt, a bewildering complex...patched with the colors of the rainbow, and we madly try to adapt ourselves to its complexities. We change our characters according to the company we keep." And because we choose to be this way, we can not commit to anything.

Commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, or something else.

To what are we committed today?

Our world sure could use a good dose of commitment. Commitment to God, that is.

Commitment. Dedication. Devotion. Allegiance. Loyalty. Fidelity. Whatever you want to call it. We need it.

If we want to get our world back on track, we need to commit our lives and ways to God!

The church needs to wake up!

(Kierkegaard's Complacent Duck

By Dean O'Bryan

Copied from Sermon Central)

We’ve become like sitting ducks.

There was a Danish philosopher named Kierkegaard (keer - ku - guard) whose writings are deep and tough to read. But that deep thinker one time told a simple parable that describes how easy it is to slide into complacency.

According to his parable, one Spring, a duck was flying north with a flock. In the Danish countryside that particular duck spotted a barnyard where tame ducks lived. The duck dropped down and he discovered these ducks had wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed for an hour....then for the day....a week then went by and a month. And because the corn and the safe barnyard were so fine, our duck ended up staying the whole Summer at that farm. Then one crisp Fall day, some wild ducks flew overhead, quacking as they winged their way south. He looked up and heard them — and he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join his comrades for the trip south.

But all that corn had made the duck both soft and heavy — and he couldn't manage to fly any higher than the barn roof. So he dropped back to that barnyard and he said to himself, "Oh well, my life here is safe and the food is good!" After that in the Spring and in the Fall, that duck would hear wild ducks honking as they passed overhead — and for a minute, his eyes would look and gleam — he'd start flapping his wings almost without realizing it...but then a day came, when those others would pass overhead uttering their cry — and the now tame duck would not pay the slightest attention.

Over the past few weeks we have been talking about how the church needs to wake up! The church has been attacked by the diseases of apathy and complacency. It seems that like that barnyard duck — American Christians have gotten tamed....and spoiled...in the process, we've often forgotten Whose we are and Who we are to be. The church has fallen asleep!

It didn’t happen overnight. Complacency is a disease that sneaks up on us. We’ve just dozed off into dreamland.

It’s time to wake up Church!

It’s time to wake up our commitment!

Paul writes in Romans 13:

11 …[U]nderstanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed…. 14 [C]lothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. (Romans 13, NIV)

It’s time to wake up and get serious about our commitment with God.

If we want things to change, it will only be by our fulling trusting and committing ourselves to God.

King David wrote in Psalm 37:

1 Do not fret because of those who are evil?    or be envious of those who do wrong;

2 for like the grass they will soon wither,?    like green plants they will soon die away.