10 Ways to Tell You’re Slipping
Sunday AM – Lynn Haven – 01/13/08
FOCUS:
• Spiritual Depression
• Slipping Away From God
FUNCTION:
• Encouraging Christians to face their weaknesses & pursue spiritual revival.
A. Pleasantries
B. Slumps. They happen all the time, don’t they?
1. When you hear the word “slump,” what do you think about?
2. There’s a couple phrases that come to mind:
a. There’s “Sophomore Slump”
1) This describes the phenomenon that often happens when someone who starts something fast slows down in their second year.
2) It’s a Sophomore Slump
b. Churches often experience “Summer Slumps”
1) When families often take trips & vacations in the summer months, attendance numbers are often depressed.
2) It’s a summer slump.
3. But when I think of the word slump, being a sports fan, I most often think about baseball
a. You’re probably aware that baseball keeps track of a ridiculous number of stats.
b. One of the most well-known stats is “Batting Average.”
1) This is where you take the number of base hits a player has and divide it by the number of total at bats that same player has.
2) What you get is a percentage – the average number of times a player will get a base hit.
c. But the thing about batting averages is that they aren’t static.
1) Say there’s a guy that gets on base 30% of the time.
2) Does that mean that EVERY 10 times that guy comes up to bat that he gets a hit 3 out of every 10 at bats?? NO!
3) Sometimes, he only gets a hit 2 out of 10 at bats.
4) But then in the next 10 at bats, he might get 4 hits so that it evens out to 30%.
d. Sometimes, hitters go into slumps
1) They might go through a stretch of 10 at bats with no hits.
2) Some slumps are short
3) Some last longer.
e. If a slump lasts a REAL long time, you begin to wonder if a player’s skills have eroded & if they might be slipping.
4. We can also have spiritual slumps, can’t we?
a. You know, you go a period of time where you just aren’t 100%
1) You may not be praying as much
2) Or reading the Bible as much
3) Or going to church as much
4) You’re going through a spiritual slump
b. It’s easy to slump after the Holidays, isn’t it?
1) In 8 days, on January 21st, we will experience what is called “The Most Depressing Day of the Year.”
a) It will be a Monday – nobody cares for Monday’s.
b) The Holidays will have been over for almost a month
i. So, any residual warmth of holiday cheer and family fun has kicked the bucket by Jan. 21st.
ii. The thrill of New Year’s celebrations & turning over a new leaf are over.
iii. Reality starts to set in.
c) The Credit Card Bills come due & you’re right between pay-days.
i. So you can’t spend your way to happiness.
ii. And the worry over paying your bills adds even more grief.
d) We’re still near winter’s solstice
i. So the days are short
ii. And we don’t get a lot of sunlight.
e) And even if we did get sunlight, the weather is at its worst.
i. So, whatever sunlight we do get, it’s probably blocked by it being overcast.
ii. Plus, it’s bitterly cold.
2) So, you guys looking forward to next Monday as much as I am?
c. It would be easy for any of us to fall into a slump right now…
d. It’s one thing to be in a slump. But it’s another to start slipping, isn’t it?
1) Do you know the difference?
2) How can you tell if you’re in a spiritual slump, or if you’re really just slipping away from God & further into the world?
e. In 1st Corinthians 10:12, Paul writes, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.”
f. This week, a good man named Joe McKeever wrote an article on the internet called “10 Ways to Tell You’re Slipping.”
http://www.crosswalk.com/pastors/11564132/
g. So how do we know if we’re slipping? Let’s look at Dr. McKeever’s top 10 list:
I. You know you’re slipping when the big thing you look forward to on a Sunday is a football game.
A. Actually, you could substitute “football game” with anything.
1. Dinner
2. Shopping
3. Napping
B. But it’s whatever you get excited about INSTEAD of getting excited about worshipping God.
1. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
2. Where your heart is, that’s your treasure.
3. Where your passion is, that’s what you really value.
4. And if it’s anything other than God, you may have an idol on your hands.
C. If you get more excited about something else other than worship, you’re slipping.
II. You know you’re slipping when reading the Bible no longer excites you, angers you, or challenges you.
A. You could REALLY tell if you’re slipping if you only read half that line: “You know you’re slipping when (you’re) reading the Bible no longer.” [Pause]
B. But, whenever you do read the Bible, if it doesn’t move you…
1. If you read its pages with a blank face, and it does nothing to touch your heart
2. Then you may have a petrified heart…
a. A heart hardened by
1) Disappointment
2) distance from God
3) or sin
b. But it’s no longer soft & receptive to overtures from the Almighty.
C. If reading the Bible no longer moves you, you’re slipping.
III. You know you’re slipping when you finally get up off the couch and get involved in some ministry the Lord has been laying on your heart and the first thing you do is start criticizing all the other couch potatoes who are only doing the same thing you have been doing all this time.
A. You ever done that?
1. In my household, we sometimes quivel over chores.
a. I’m sure we’re the only household who does that, right?
b. “Wrong,” I’m sure…
2. I’ve noticed that one chore that goes undone sometimes is taking out the garbage.
a. It will pile up
b. Someone will get fed up
c. And as they’re gathering it up to take it outside, they’ll often complain, “Guess I’ll be the one who takes out the garbage!”
d. You guys know how smart-allecky I am
e. So, after the last time that someone in my family did this, when it came time to take out the garbage, I announced in the exact same tone, “Guess I’m upset that I’m the one who’s taking out the garbage!”
f. …because that’s really what that person is saying, right?
g. They’d rather not be taking out the garbage.
3. Likewise when you complain about others not involved in ministry…
B. Whenever you decided to involve yourself in ministry, and your first inclination is to complain about the others who have been doing exactly what you were doing, you’re slipping.
IV. You know you’re slipping when, after slacking off in your tithing over the past year, instead of feeling guilty, you find yourself criticizing the regular tithers for their self-righteous and legalistic attitudes.
A. We don’t have to tithe in the new covenant, do we?
1. God does not set an amount or a percentage that we are required to give.
2. “Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Co 9:7)
B. So why would we grow resentful of others around us who choose to tithe, or give at least ten percent of what they earn?
1. Perhaps it’s because we know that we should be giving more.
2. And instead of allowing ourselves to feel guilt or Godly shame, our flesh & human nature encourages us to project that disappointment outwards instead of inwards.
C. If this describes you, then you’re slipping.
V. You know you’re slipping when you can read the Ten Commandments and give yourself a passing grade on all of them.
A. If you examine yourself and can’t find a flaw, you’re not looking hard enough.
1. Even Paul admitted that he wasn’t perfect…
2. Philippians chapter 3…
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things.
B. If someone like Paul could devote himself so fully & so entirely but confess that he had not reached the goal yet, then how could we?
1. And don’t underestimate Paul.
2. That statement says more about Christ than it does about Paul.
C. But if you’re satisfied with where you are & give yourself a passing grade on Biblical commandments, you are slipping.
VI. You know you’re slipping when you can go a whole day without praying and it not bother you one bit.
A. If you go a whole day…
1. A whole week
2. A whole month
3. A whole YEAR [Pause]
4. …without talking to God personally, and it does NOT disturb your conscience even one little bit, I’ve got news for you…
B. You’re slipping.
VII. You know you’re slipping when you can have a dirty thought and justify it as "what normal humans do."
A. If you have lingering thoughts of…
1. Hate
2. Lust
3. Greed
4. Anxiety
5. Or if, when you think to yourself with your own internal monologue, use regularly use vulgar language that you would never use in this building, you’re slipping.
B. Our calling is to live beyond “what normal humans do.”
1. “Be perfect/complete/whole as your Heavenly Father is perfect/complete/whole.” Matt. 5:48
2. From 1st Peter…
Chapter 1
14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."
Chapter 2
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
3. Is there any indication in any of those passages that we Christians should measure ourselves by the standard of “what normal humans do?”
a. We aren’t normal humans
b. We are “aliens & strangers”
c. We are called by a perfect & holy God who calls us to likewise be perfect & holy.
C. If you justify yourself by telling yourself that it’s “what normal humans do,” I’m afraid I have to tell you that you’re slipping.
VIII. You know you’re slipping when you feel a nudging from the Holy Spirit to speak to that person or give to this one or make a phone call to another and you squelch it.
A. There’s a very disturbing passage in James 4:17.
1. I’m going to share it with you:
2. “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.”
3. That’s a pretty radical passage, isn’t it?
4. “But I thought sins were just those things that we WEREN’T supposed to do.”
B. If you know something to do that’s right, and you quench the Holy Spirit’s nudging
1. You’re not just slipping
2. You’re sinning
IX. You know you’re slipping when you decide to reward yourself for doing well by skipping your Bible reading and prayer for that day.
A. What a skewed sense of “do-gooding” we have sometimes, huh?
B. If making the WRONG choice becomes REWARD to you, you’re slipping.
X. You know you’re really, really slipping when the problem of slipping doesn’t cause you great concern.
A. If…
1. You listened to this entire sermon completely bored
2. If what you heard didn’t make you consider examining yourself
3. If you found yourself wanting to tune me out…
B. Then YOU are slipping.
1. You’re teetering on the wrong side of that slippery slope
2. And you’re in grave danger of slipping away from God forever
CONCLUSION
A. Dr. McKeever, who created this list, wrote the following in this article: “It’s surprising how God’s people awaken one day and suddenly realize they have fallen away from the closeness they used to enjoy with the Lord. The signs have been there all along, but they were not paying attention.”
B. If you’re slipping, you need revival.
1. You need to revive your Heart, Mind, & Spirit.
2. You need to open yourself up to the Reign of God & surrender to His will for your life.
3. Give up the façade.
a. Do away with the pack of lies you sold yourself.
b. Untangle the web of deception that Satan has helped you weave for yourself.
c. And accept God’s healing for your soul.
C. Let God revive you again
Invitation Song:
“REVIVE ME AGAIN”
