The Apathetic Believer Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: August 04, 2009

Date Preached: August 09, 2009

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Sermon Series: Murder and Robbery in the Fellowship!

Sermon Title: The Apathetic Believer!

Sermon Text: 1 Cor 9:19-27 [HCSB]

Introduction:

About 3:20 AM on March 13, 1964, Kitty, a 28 yr old mgr of a bar in NYC came home to her quiet neighborhood, parked her car and began to walk the 30 yds or so from the pkng lot to her apt.

She noticed a man at the other end of the lot and he started for her, she tried to run to a police call box but he overtook her and attacked her and began to stab her.

She began to scream and lights went on and windows opened up, and one guy even hollered from his window, “Leave that girl alone!” The attacker coolly walked away, and when the commotion had died down, the windows closed and lights went back off, so the attacker returned and attacked again. This time she screamed even louder and more lights came on and more windows opened.

The attacker decided to leave and left Kitty bleeding in the parking lot. Somehow she crawled from the pkng lot to the door of her bldg, but much to her terror, she saw the attacker coming back for a 3rd time… this time he finished what he had started, he killed Kitty.

The 3 attacks took a total of about 30 min and during those 3 attacks not one single person had come to her defense. There were no heroes in her bldg or any bldg around her even tho’ over 30 people who were interviewed said they saw the attack happening. And the sad thing was that these people were scared to even call the police. When they were finally called they arrived in less than 2 minutes.

Those interviewed said things like, ‘I didn’t want me or my husband to get involved!’ One man even said he was just too tired to call the police. Of those interviewed many said they did not come to her aid because they were afraid, but some simply did not have an answer.

As a pastor I see this happening all the time from another perspective… spiritually speaking in neighborhoods all over our country! I believe this type of attitude is a direct reflection of the church today! Now while I don’t think there are any of us here this morning that would sit idly by while such a brutal attack was happening… we do it all the time from a spiritual perspective.

Did you know that every 15 seconds in our country a person dies and goes out into eternity and the sad fact is that 3 out of every 4 who die in our country today, die without Christ in their heart…without a saving knowledge of our Savior!

What can we do to stem this terrible tide? Well, we cannot stop death, but what we can do is help those who are going to die be prepared for eternity when they do…

In looking at the church in America today we have to be honest with ourselves; we have become soft and ineffective on so many issues and things of substance within society. The church used to be a stalwart rock standing against evil and battling the Enemy, but statistics bear out that we are no longer standing strong…

Did you know that 9 of every 10 SBC churches are what we call plateaued or declining in their attendance, which is nothing more than flowery words for dead and dying churches.

Did you know that the SBC has baptized less and less over the past 3 yrs and this past year was the lowest total since 1987 and that a majority of our SBC churches are not even baptizing one person every year.

If we sit back and look at the big picture we have to admit that our church today has become apathetic to the condition of the lost and to the needs of the world around us.

I will be the 1st to admit that there are pockets of believers on fire for God, some churches doing what they are called to do, but for the most part the church in general has lost the zeal we once had for salvation of the sinner, and we seem awfully content just to sit in our pews and bide our time till Jesus comes again!

This is NOT the church Jesus describes in Matt 15 when Jesus said, “…the gates of hell shall not prevail against it…”, and what Jesus meant was that the church was marching AGAINST evil not defending itself and sitting back… we are supposed to be on the offensive!

Now last week we looked at that believer who’s actions can tear apart the fellowship of a congregation, but today I want us to look at that believer who’s INACTIONS can likewise do the same thing…tear at the very fabric of our fellowship and service to God.