Common
Pt. 1 - Droppin' Dimes
Introduction
We have confronted and challenged our apathy towards people. Jesus made it clear that we must not only claim love for God but that that love must be demonstrated with love for people. We can't claim love for the One we can't see if we don't love the ones we can see. However, our ability to love others is rooted and established in our love for God. I am convinced that apathy towards others is at epidemic levels. However, our apathy/lack of passion for people pales in comparison to our apathy towards the God of the universe.
There are colloquialisms that speak to rarity and exceptional things. "Once in a blue moon" or "a needle in a hay stack." Statements that conjure up ideas of the seldom seen or difficult to find. However, because of the abundance of apathy, disregard and dismissal of God even by those called by His name I think there is another phrase that more accurately reflects our attitude and approach to God. "Dime a dozen." It is the idea that encountering, gaining a consistent, daily, weekly audience with the King of Kings is now nothing more than routine. Take it or leave it. So we treat the rare like the regular! We mistake the extraordinary for the ordinary! We overlook the incredible and approach it as if it is the common! And as I have taught in the past how we perceive determines how we receive! So the challenge of this day is to get us to examine our attitude towards the holy.
I believe that in order for us to destroy apathy towards God we must develop a new sense of awe or reverence. When you are awe struck by something or when you have reverence for something you are not apathetic towards it. I think we have lost that in our approach to God. Thankfully the veil of separation has been torn so that we now have unlimited and unrestricted access to boldly approach the throne. I am so glad we don't have to have a go between like a human priest to get to the Father. Yet at the same time this access has caused us to become flippant about the opportunity and privilege we have been granted. The high priest were not apathetic in their yearly approach to God because they knew that apathy could and would bring instant death. Our apathetic approach still brings our demise but the pace of destruction is much slower and less noticeable so that we often don't even recognize the slow invasion of death.
I could certainly take you into Scripture and show you apathy towards God on display. I could take you to the account of the Children of Israel demanding a king to replace The King. I could mention David's attempt to rescue the Ark of the Covenant by the means of a new cart and Uzzah's instant death sentence for touching the sacred. Time and time again no regard for the holy. Yet, I think this morning I would rather show you an example that can instruct us on our own approach.
Text: Nehemiah 8:2-6
So Ezra the priest brought out to them the scroll of Moses’ laws. He stood on a wooden stand made especially for the occasion so that everyone could see him as he read. He faced the square in front of the Water Gate and read from early morning until noon. Everyone stood up as he opened the scroll. And all who were old enough to understand paid close attention. . . Then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people said, “Amen,” and lifted their hands toward heaven; then they bowed and worshiped the Lord with their faces toward the ground.
Talk about the antithesis of apathy. Talk about reverence! Did you catch what I just read to you? Do you realize what I just read to you is the description of nothing more than an Old Testament example of a church service? But notice the passion. Notice the attitude. Here are some highlights in case you missed them.
1. The people were so desperate for the Word that they stood from early morning till midday to listen to it being read! We freak if a preacher goes more than 20 minutes because His Word is a dime a dozen and common. Apathy.
2. The people stood when the Word was read. I am not suggesting that we become legalistic about it. However, when you have a revelation of the fact that the Word of God is the Word of God reverence should be the response. We have made His Word so common . . . Always at our finger tips, easily and readily accessible, heard in our cars and on our TVs so we hear the decrees of a King and we doodle, day dream, and drift in our thoughts. Word of life disregarded. Word of God ignored and disrespected. Apathy!
3. When the people hear the Word and Ezra leads them in worship they respond in reverence, they participate, they hit the ground, they bow, they worshipped. No need to prime the pump. No need to work the room. No need to sing the right song the right number of times.
They simply respond out of hearts filled with reverence.
I want to use this Old Testament service to challenge you about our level of reverence/approach towards God. If we are going to break apathy towards God, then we must:
A. Become desperate and attentive to His Word.
I have questions I can't answer. What if Ezra wasn't a great orator? What if Ezra's voice was annoying? What if Ezra was monotone? I would suggest that there is no detail given because the people apparently understood that they weren't listening to Ezra they were listening to God! We must become so desperate and attentive to His Word that the vessel and the voice doesn't matter! Our ears are trained to hear the voice behind the voice. Hear His voice even when it is disguised or robed in the voice of mere mortal. Our opportunities to hear (faith comes by hearing - notice it didn't say by reading) become crucial for us. The hearing of the Word must become important again. It isn't take it or leave it as if I have missed nothing. We strain to hear so that we don't stray. Attentive. Understanding these are words of life!
B. Our time must become His time.
If we are going to displace apathy towards God we have to quit holding Him hostage to our clock and our calendar.
He isn't on the agenda He is the agenda. Many of us are apathetic towards God simply because we have scheduled Him as if He is common. We try to fit Him in. We have lost the art of tarrying and in the process we have lost the war with time. We made made time holier and more divine than divinity.
C. Make sure our worship is appropriate for our audience.
If your audience is your neighbor, then maybe your worship was acceptable. If your audience was man, then maybe your worship was appropriate. However, if we can shake off apathy and understand that the songs that we sing, the actions that we take, the hand claps, the dance, the hand raised is not for the dime a dozen, regular, routine, every day or the common but rather for the Lily of the Valley, The Rose of Sharon, The Bright and Morning Star, The Fairest of Ten Thousand, The Name above every name, The Lord of lords, The King of kings, The Great and Mighty, The Sovereign God then we would worship appropriately and passionately. Drop the dime a dozen mentality. Our apathy is displayed by approach! When someone has to pull it out of us then I question whether it is really important to us. If we have an understanding of who we are after, then our worship will rise to a new and different level! Reverence is connected to our revelation!
