CHRIST SANCTUARY. - 25 AUGUST 2024
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Sloth / to David Attenborough / the sloth it’s a pointy-nosed animal hanging upside down from the branch of a tree / by its two toes the slowest moving mammal / in the rain-forest of South America
But that’s not the sloth / we’re talking about this morning
We’re talking about one of the seven deadly sins
Sloth is a little known sin / probably the least-known of the seven
We see the word “sloth” / we mostly think of laziness
And yes / the Bible does have some strong words about laziness
In fact / it has its own word for a sloth / a rather quaint word
The Bible calls a sloth “a sluggard” / Proverbs 6:6
“Go to the ant / you sluggard / consider its ways and be wise!
And Paul / uses some stern words to warn us about laziness
But the word “sloth” / means more than just laziness
The early church rightly identified “sloth” by its Latin name / acedia meaning “uncaring” / “indifferent” / “apathetic”
Most dictionaries define “sloth” to mean “disregard” “unconcern” “apathy” “indifference”
Someone has defined acedia as / “you don't care / you know
that you don't care / and you don't care that you don't care"
* Dorothy Sayers / the English mystery writer / says /
“It is the sin that believes in nothing / cares for nothing / interferes with nothing / enjoys nothing
hates nothing / finds purpose in nothing / There is not a trumpet in our lives / to call us to our feet”
Here are some instances of sloth in the Bible:
Here are some instances of sloth in the Bible:
* In the parable of the Good Samaritan / the Levite and the Priest committed the sin of sloth
when they ignored the plight of the poor man beaten up by robbers
* In the Parable of the rich man and Lazarus / Dives the rich man committed the sin of sloth / when he
ignored the needs of the poor man lying at his gate
* When Herodias' daughter pleased Herod with her dancing. and instigated by her mother asked for the head of John the Baptist / Herod for fear of those who sat at table / caved in and had the head
* When Herodias' daughter pleased Herod with her dancing. and instigated by her mother asked for the head of John the Baptist / Herod for fear of those who sat at table / caved in and had the head
of John delivered in a platter / Herod committed the sin of sloth
But perhaps / the most depraved case of sloth / is seen not in any of the stories Jesus told
but in what is actually done to Him / at his trial
I am talking of Pilate / he’s a sloth par excellence. If there’s a poster child for the sin of sloth / Pilate qualifies as one
Pilate occupies a strange spot on the stage of human history
If you think your job is hard / Pilate had a most unenviable job
It falls on this one man / to make the gravest decision
anyone could ever be called on to make
He has to decide whether to acquit Jesus / or have him executed
Reading the text / you could tell that deep inside him
Pilate knows / what he needs to do
His wife tells him / what he needs to do
But really Pilate doesn’t need his wife to tell him that
He senses it in His heart / to let Jesus go free
What then / is his trouble? / The Jews
Pilate has to contend with what to him are pesky / irksome Jews
The Jews have the upper hand
They have the political trump card / and they play it well
They say: “If you let this man go / then you’re not Caesar’s friend”
The moment they said that / they had him cornered
Caesar's Friend / the friend of Caesar / Amacus Kesarai
the most coveted title in all the entire Great Roman Empire
Now Pilate already has that title / But he’s holding it tenuously / For already on two occasions these contemptuous Jews have complained to Caesar about his administration / and Caesar is keeping an eye on him
Pilate is worried that the Jews might talk to his boss again / You see how clever these priests and the elders are / Because now / they’re starting to talk about his boss they’re starting to talk about his job and a man must have his job / a man must live !
Pilate is cornered! / So he asks for a basin of water to be brought to him and as he washes his hands
he keeps muttering to himself “I hate to have to do this but a man must live / a man must live”
And soon as he wipes his hands dry he proceeds to pass the death sentence on Jesus
Now this / is one of the clearest expressions of the sin of sloth - the sin of apathy / of turning a blind eye
Pilate is taking the path of the lease resistance / He’s nonchalant / He is cutting a moral slack / He vacillates / Like a jellyfish / he is spineless
He hasn’t got the nerve to go through / with what he knows is right / Even when he’s convinced that Jesus is innocent he does nothing to squash the false charges brought up against him
He is not necessarily an evil person / He hatches no evil / But equally / he hatches nothing good
Goodness in the midst of evil requires fortitude to bring it about
Pilate / simply has no stomach / to bring anything about
He is far more concerned / with getting along in life unperturbed
Pilate comes this close to making something out of his life
But he blows it / and he comes to a bad end
Secular history informs us that in about 36 A.D. the governor of Syria brought serious accusations against Pilate with the result that he was banished to Vienne in Gaul / And there / south of France / according to tradition Pontius Pilate committed suicide and his body dumped into Lake Lucerne
And there is a legend that Mount Pilatus in Switzerland got its name from Pilate that at the foot of the Swiss mountain over the waters of Lake Lucerne / there can often be seen on moonlight nights / the ghost of Pilate forever roaming / forever moaning / ever washing its hands
It is as if no amount of water is sufficient to wash away the stain of one who came face to face
with the Son Of God and chose to reject Him
Now / Why is Pilate like that?
Has he never heard of Jesus? / Of course he has!
He could’ve look Jesus / straight in a eye and determine for himself / if this Messiah is for real
But no / he will not do that / For he knows that if he look right into the heart of the Messiah he will see the shaft of the light of truth in this man’s heart and he will be compelled to make a decision that will jeopardise his job / And that / he will not do
Perhaps he reasons to himself / “Well / I think this man is for real but I’ve got a wife and kids at home
and a man has got to have his job / a man has got to live”
This man is a bureaucrat in the worst sense of the word. He does his job impeccably well / but he does that by shielding his eyes from having to see the many lives he has destroyed / And so like an efficient cog in a huge bureaucratic machinery / he is at his desk each morning making crucial decisions / that help oil the machinery / These are soulless people
Frederick Buechner the writer tells us that the sloth is one who just goes through the motions / he flies on automatic pilot / he let things run their course and focuses on just getting through his life
What has eroded in such people / is this thing called integrity
The word “integrity” comes from the word integer / In mathematics it means a whole number /
But perhaps / the most depraved case of sloth / is seen not in any of the stories Jesus told
but in what is actually done to Him / at his trial
I am talking of Pilate / he’s a sloth par excellence. If there’s a poster child for the sin of sloth / Pilate qualifies as one
Pilate occupies a strange spot on the stage of human history
If you think your job is hard / Pilate had a most unenviable job
It falls on this one man / to make the gravest decision
anyone could ever be called on to make
He has to decide whether to acquit Jesus / or have him executed
Reading the text / you could tell that deep inside him
Pilate knows / what he needs to do
His wife tells him / what he needs to do
But really Pilate doesn’t need his wife to tell him that
He senses it in His heart / to let Jesus go free
What then / is his trouble? / The Jews
Pilate has to contend with what to him are pesky / irksome Jews
The Jews have the upper hand
They have the political trump card / and they play it well
They say: “If you let this man go / then you’re not Caesar’s friend”
The moment they said that / they had him cornered
Caesar's Friend / the friend of Caesar / Amacus Kesarai
the most coveted title in all the entire Great Roman Empire
Now Pilate already has that title / But he’s holding it tenuously / For already on two occasions these contemptuous Jews have complained to Caesar about his administration / and Caesar is keeping an eye on him
Pilate is worried that the Jews might talk to his boss again / You see how clever these priests and the elders are / Because now / they’re starting to talk about his boss they’re starting to talk about his job and a man must have his job / a man must live !
Pilate is cornered! / So he asks for a basin of water to be brought to him and as he washes his hands
he keeps muttering to himself “I hate to have to do this but a man must live / a man must live”
And soon as he wipes his hands dry he proceeds to pass the death sentence on Jesus
Now this / is one of the clearest expressions of the sin of sloth - the sin of apathy / of turning a blind eye
Pilate is taking the path of the lease resistance / He’s nonchalant / He is cutting a moral slack / He vacillates / Like a jellyfish / he is spineless
He hasn’t got the nerve to go through / with what he knows is right / Even when he’s convinced that Jesus is innocent he does nothing to squash the false charges brought up against him
He is not necessarily an evil person / He hatches no evil / But equally / he hatches nothing good
Goodness in the midst of evil requires fortitude to bring it about
Pilate / simply has no stomach / to bring anything about
He is far more concerned / with getting along in life unperturbed
Pilate comes this close to making something out of his life
But he blows it / and he comes to a bad end
Secular history informs us that in about 36 A.D. the governor of Syria brought serious accusations against Pilate with the result that he was banished to Vienne in Gaul / And there / south of France / according to tradition Pontius Pilate committed suicide and his body dumped into Lake Lucerne
And there is a legend that Mount Pilatus in Switzerland got its name from Pilate that at the foot of the Swiss mountain over the waters of Lake Lucerne / there can often be seen on moonlight nights / the ghost of Pilate forever roaming / forever moaning / ever washing its hands
It is as if no amount of water is sufficient to wash away the stain of one who came face to face
with the Son Of God and chose to reject Him
Now / Why is Pilate like that?
Has he never heard of Jesus? / Of course he has!
He could’ve look Jesus / straight in a eye and determine for himself / if this Messiah is for real
But no / he will not do that / For he knows that if he look right into the heart of the Messiah he will see the shaft of the light of truth in this man’s heart and he will be compelled to make a decision that will jeopardise his job / And that / he will not do
Perhaps he reasons to himself / “Well / I think this man is for real but I’ve got a wife and kids at home
and a man has got to have his job / a man has got to live”
This man is a bureaucrat in the worst sense of the word. He does his job impeccably well / but he does that by shielding his eyes from having to see the many lives he has destroyed / And so like an efficient cog in a huge bureaucratic machinery / he is at his desk each morning making crucial decisions / that help oil the machinery / These are soulless people
Frederick Buechner the writer tells us that the sloth is one who just goes through the motions / he flies on automatic pilot / he let things run their course and focuses on just getting through his life
What has eroded in such people / is this thing called integrity
The word “integrity” comes from the word integer / In mathematics it means a whole number /
as opposed to a fraction
A person of integrity lives his life wholesomely not in fragments / or in compartments
He’s the same person when people are watching as he is / when no one is watching
He’s the same person on Monday as he was on Sunday
But when you knock on the door of a sloth / no one’s home / Because it’s your integrity that gives you an identity / In this sense Pilate does not exist at all / He’s not a person / He’s no more than a puff of air / a mere whiff / vapour / the nearest thing to zero / airy fairy nothing
It is tragic / but there are people like that / C.S. Lewis calls them / “men without chests”
He says / we have the machinery to create men like that and then we turn around scratch our heads
and wonder why we have men like that
In his book: The Abolition of Man / this is what he says:
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity / we remove the organ and demand the function / We make men without chests and expect of them / virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate / and bid the geldings be fruitful”
There is another way you can detect sloth in a person
Someone who is a sloth / is shifty and deceptive
You’ll remember that Peter made a promise to Jesus that even if he had to die / he will never disown Him Yet he betrayed Jesus / he broke his promise / He’s untruthful and insincere / That’s who a sloth is!
You may not think too much of it / but it is in keeping to your word / that marks you out as wholesome
There’s a movie called It Could Happen to You played by Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda
It’s about a cop a mere cop / he didn’t have enough money to pay his tip in a restaurant / and he promises the waitress that if she makes a contribution to his lottery ticket and if it wins he’ll give her half his winning
He finds out he wins $4 million/ His wife hears about his promise to the waitress / she says
“Forget that / It’s not in writing / She doesn’t have it in writing / Forget it / $4 million / You’ll be an idiot to go back”. And he says “A promise is a promise” and he goes to the diner and he gives the waitress $2 million
And it is interesting that through the rest of the movie the cop’s wife / who has no principles whatsoever
goes through a multiple transformation of personalities until she finally crumples and disintegrates
But as for the cop / even though he pays a high price for sticking to his promise / he has a sense of himself
he’s the same wholesome person / right through everything
Beware / the sacredness of being true to your word / You let that erode / you turn duplicitous and deceptive and that / is the deadly sin of sloth
But / how have slothful people come to where they have come to? Have they no soul? / The answer is “Yes / they have no soul!” / They did / once / but they have allowed it to shrivel
Let me explain this by sharing the story of Adolf Eichmann the key figure in the murder of six million Jews in Nazi Germany / Eichmann was put on the Nuremberg Trial for his war crimes
A person of integrity lives his life wholesomely not in fragments / or in compartments
He’s the same person when people are watching as he is / when no one is watching
He’s the same person on Monday as he was on Sunday
But when you knock on the door of a sloth / no one’s home / Because it’s your integrity that gives you an identity / In this sense Pilate does not exist at all / He’s not a person / He’s no more than a puff of air / a mere whiff / vapour / the nearest thing to zero / airy fairy nothing
It is tragic / but there are people like that / C.S. Lewis calls them / “men without chests”
He says / we have the machinery to create men like that and then we turn around scratch our heads
and wonder why we have men like that
In his book: The Abolition of Man / this is what he says:
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity / we remove the organ and demand the function / We make men without chests and expect of them / virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate / and bid the geldings be fruitful”
There is another way you can detect sloth in a person
Someone who is a sloth / is shifty and deceptive
You’ll remember that Peter made a promise to Jesus that even if he had to die / he will never disown Him Yet he betrayed Jesus / he broke his promise / He’s untruthful and insincere / That’s who a sloth is!
You may not think too much of it / but it is in keeping to your word / that marks you out as wholesome
There’s a movie called It Could Happen to You played by Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda
It’s about a cop a mere cop / he didn’t have enough money to pay his tip in a restaurant / and he promises the waitress that if she makes a contribution to his lottery ticket and if it wins he’ll give her half his winning
He finds out he wins $4 million/ His wife hears about his promise to the waitress / she says
“Forget that / It’s not in writing / She doesn’t have it in writing / Forget it / $4 million / You’ll be an idiot to go back”. And he says “A promise is a promise” and he goes to the diner and he gives the waitress $2 million
And it is interesting that through the rest of the movie the cop’s wife / who has no principles whatsoever
goes through a multiple transformation of personalities until she finally crumples and disintegrates
But as for the cop / even though he pays a high price for sticking to his promise / he has a sense of himself
he’s the same wholesome person / right through everything
Beware / the sacredness of being true to your word / You let that erode / you turn duplicitous and deceptive and that / is the deadly sin of sloth
But / how have slothful people come to where they have come to? Have they no soul? / The answer is “Yes / they have no soul!” / They did / once / but they have allowed it to shrivel
Let me explain this by sharing the story of Adolf Eichmann the key figure in the murder of six million Jews in Nazi Germany / Eichmann was put on the Nuremberg Trial for his war crimes
That morning / when he stood there on the dock / Hannah Arendt / the political theorist and philosopher
tells us that she did not see a monster / She said he looked more like a harmless clerk / than a violent monster / She thought that he was rather dull and commonplace
In fact / at his trial it became clear / that he had had no personal hatred for the Jews / he wasn’t disgruntled or venomous or anything like that / he was merely doing his job
So how do men like Pilate and Eichmann come to lose their soul?
The answer: In tiny teaspoon doses!
Each one of Eichmann’s early choices were peanuts: joining the party / accepting assignments / getting promotions and weaving his way into bureaucratic favour / Each choice he made / was like a link / in the chain that finally lashed the cords of his life to inhuman evil
People who have fallen morally / have fallen not as a result of one seductive master-stroke / Few people are enticed to surrender away our souls in a single seduction / in one fell swoop / People who’ve had the defences of their heart / broken into have been compromising in small ways taking in small spoonfuls / of what appeared to be harmless doses of the devil’s portion
Many people who’ve compromised their own convictions have tried / in later years / to look back to try to locate the point / from which they began to fall / And you know something / most of them who’ve tried
have said / that they just couldn’t locate it
Why? Because / except for clear cases of demon possession / evil almost never storm into your life and start taking over
* Convictions don’t just collapse suddenly upon one huge incoming wave / like a washout
* Convictions erode gradually / often silently
Evil whittles away our integrity / slowly by slicing a sliver here / a shaving there just so to get us into the habit of making little compromises until we finally relinquish / our control centre and hand it over / sold by the lie
Is it any wonder Word “Above all else guard your heart for it is the source of life” / Pr 4:23
Remember / long before Judas betrayed our Lord / the Bible says: “having charge of the money-bag / he used to help himself to what was put into it” / John 12:6
The best gift you can give yourself / is for you to take time away and ask yourself / “What brew / what concoction have I been gulping down / in teaspoon doses?”
See / there’s something / we should fear most
Let’s take it from Vitezslav Gardavsky / Gardavsky was a Czechoslovakian philosopher and martyr
who died in 1978 / He took the prophet Jeremiah as his model in his campaign against a society that was fast becoming soulless and passionless
He wrote in his book / that the worst threat against life is not death / nor pain / not any kind of disaster
that we try so hard to avoid / Gardavsky said the most terrible threat against life is that we might die
before we really do die / dying inside us / long before our last breath leaves us
These are his exact words: “The real horror lies in just such a premature death a death / after which we go on living for many years”
How many people there are / who’re still walking about but '
* the music has left their bones / the zest has fizzled out
* there is no more colour / in their eyes
* there is no more colour / in their eyes
* they've been reduced to a hollow living shell
In Mel Gibson’s Braveheart / William Wallace / has a line that has inspired many
In Mel Gibson’s Braveheart / William Wallace / has a line that has inspired many
He said: “Every man dies / but not every man really lives”
This could be what Augustine meant when he prayed: “Lord / let me die / lest I die”
There are two kinds of death * one / to be sought after * the other / to be avoided at all cost
Now this is scary! Because it can happen to anyone of us
But / once in a while you come across some people who are upright / virtuous / resolute and unswerving
there’s something about them / that makes you want to be them - they have moral clarity on where the truth lies - they speak with incisiveness - they reveal a strength of character - their integrity is intact / their character wholesome
I have seen such people / put on an awkward spot with no prior warning / in front of many other people
and asked to respond / on some sensitive issues / And yet in a tight corner like that / they did not fudge or wobble but took their stand / affirmed their position categorically
They will say something like: “No I don’t believe for a moment that that’s right! I refute the idea that gender is a social construct”
Now / put on a spot like that / they didn’t stagger / didn’t equivocate / didn’t stall for time / Not only did they know what to say they had the courage to say it
The question I’ve had to ask myself / periodically / is this: How have I not been true / to my own convictions?
I’ve traced three reasons:
One / because if you live a life of habitual truthfulness sooner or later / you’ll be on a collision course with the world You’ll have to be confrontational / necessarily / And you’re not sure if you want to do that
Two / In a world where strong convictions are frowned upon / sticking to one / will make you odd
Wasn’t it Flannery O'Conner / who so perceptively said: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd”
Three / and to me / this is most pervasive and the most insidious
Three years ago / I wrote a piece on my blog called Why Do We Devour One Another - The Politics of the Inner Ring
See / in every human community whether it’s your workplace / the club or the church / there’ll be an inner ring of a few people / It’s a ring the average person will find it hard to penetrate / You can only look at it from the outside / Those that are inside have a way of letting you know that you don’t belong without being rude or anything like that
Someone who read that piece / came up to me and said “the piece you wrote has helped me see why there’s this inner ring in church / It’s a ring I don’t belong and can’t belong and I’ve been here for two-and-a-half years now”
Now where am I going with this! / It is this: In an inner ring / in any inner ring there will be someone who is dominant and compelling with whom / you are afraid to disagree / And you’ve allowed this person’s acceptance of you to mean the world to you and you’re afraid of disappointing him
And when you find out that you DO have / a personal conviction that this forceful person disagrees with / you’ll * either play into HIS position / * or you simply plain keep quiet about yours / And over time / you start to let your own convictions slide you’re not following through with your own beliefs / you’re trading nourishing friendships for transactional ones / you’ve fallen prey to the sin of sloth
Now what lies at the root of this problem?
Martin Luther in his exposition of the Ten Commandments points to the First Commandment “You shall have no other gods before me” / Luther says it is no accident that / that is the first commandment / He says / You never ever break commandments 2 through to 10 without first breaking the first commandment
Take the 9th commandment “You shall not lie” / You don’t lie unless you’ve already broken the 1st commandment / “You shall have no other gods before me” / You’re making someone / your functional saviour / This person’s approval of you / is your idol / You lie because the approval of this person is far more important than God
The sin underneath all other sins is the sin of idolatry / It is having another god / before God
To find out / who stifles your convictions / ask yourself this question: “Who is this one person in my family / work / church who has a hold over me / who has strong opinions
* with whom I am afraid to disagree?”
* before whom / I flinch from standing on my convictions
when I know / that he’ll be unhappy with that?”
This could be what Augustine meant when he prayed: “Lord / let me die / lest I die”
There are two kinds of death * one / to be sought after * the other / to be avoided at all cost
Now this is scary! Because it can happen to anyone of us
But / once in a while you come across some people who are upright / virtuous / resolute and unswerving
there’s something about them / that makes you want to be them - they have moral clarity on where the truth lies - they speak with incisiveness - they reveal a strength of character - their integrity is intact / their character wholesome
I have seen such people / put on an awkward spot with no prior warning / in front of many other people
and asked to respond / on some sensitive issues / And yet in a tight corner like that / they did not fudge or wobble but took their stand / affirmed their position categorically
They will say something like: “No I don’t believe for a moment that that’s right! I refute the idea that gender is a social construct”
Now / put on a spot like that / they didn’t stagger / didn’t equivocate / didn’t stall for time / Not only did they know what to say they had the courage to say it
The question I’ve had to ask myself / periodically / is this: How have I not been true / to my own convictions?
I’ve traced three reasons:
One / because if you live a life of habitual truthfulness sooner or later / you’ll be on a collision course with the world You’ll have to be confrontational / necessarily / And you’re not sure if you want to do that
Two / In a world where strong convictions are frowned upon / sticking to one / will make you odd
Wasn’t it Flannery O'Conner / who so perceptively said: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd”
Three / and to me / this is most pervasive and the most insidious
Three years ago / I wrote a piece on my blog called Why Do We Devour One Another - The Politics of the Inner Ring
See / in every human community whether it’s your workplace / the club or the church / there’ll be an inner ring of a few people / It’s a ring the average person will find it hard to penetrate / You can only look at it from the outside / Those that are inside have a way of letting you know that you don’t belong without being rude or anything like that
Someone who read that piece / came up to me and said “the piece you wrote has helped me see why there’s this inner ring in church / It’s a ring I don’t belong and can’t belong and I’ve been here for two-and-a-half years now”
Now where am I going with this! / It is this: In an inner ring / in any inner ring there will be someone who is dominant and compelling with whom / you are afraid to disagree / And you’ve allowed this person’s acceptance of you to mean the world to you and you’re afraid of disappointing him
And when you find out that you DO have / a personal conviction that this forceful person disagrees with / you’ll * either play into HIS position / * or you simply plain keep quiet about yours / And over time / you start to let your own convictions slide you’re not following through with your own beliefs / you’re trading nourishing friendships for transactional ones / you’ve fallen prey to the sin of sloth
Now what lies at the root of this problem?
Martin Luther in his exposition of the Ten Commandments points to the First Commandment “You shall have no other gods before me” / Luther says it is no accident that / that is the first commandment / He says / You never ever break commandments 2 through to 10 without first breaking the first commandment
Take the 9th commandment “You shall not lie” / You don’t lie unless you’ve already broken the 1st commandment / “You shall have no other gods before me” / You’re making someone / your functional saviour / This person’s approval of you / is your idol / You lie because the approval of this person is far more important than God
The sin underneath all other sins is the sin of idolatry / It is having another god / before God
To find out / who stifles your convictions / ask yourself this question: “Who is this one person in my family / work / church who has a hold over me / who has strong opinions
* with whom I am afraid to disagree?”
* before whom / I flinch from standing on my convictions
when I know / that he’ll be unhappy with that?”
If there is such a person in your life / then you’ve allowed this person’s acceptance of you to spell your sense of worth His acceptance of you / is your idol
And until you disenthrone and depose this person / as your functioning saviour and enthrone Jesus as your true Saviour / you’ll be bumped around / like a cork in a washing machine
The Word warns us: * “The fear of man / brings a snare” / Prov 29:25
Just where may we go to for help? / We’re on the homestretch now
I want us to go back to our story / Standing there / that morning / on the other side of the room from Pilate / is Jesus / Remember that at this point in the story / our Lord has less than 48 hours to live / His life is hanging on a thread! But the thing is this / He knows it
Both Matthew and Mark tell us that in the last few closing days of His life on earth
He’s a little different / He looks preoccupied / contemplative
He’s immersed in deep private thoughts
And the disciples are unsure / if they could intrude
Matthew says / “He began to be sorrowful and troubled” / Matt 26:37
Mark says / “He was troubled and deeply distressed” / Mk 14:33
In His own words “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death / Stay here and keep watch with me” / Mark 14:34
Hebrews tells us that Jesus pleaded with “vehement cries and tears to Him / who was able to save Him from death” / Heb 5:7
* He knows the moral anguish / that He will soon go through
when all the sins of the world will be lumped on His fair head
* He knows what it will mean / for One who knows no sin to be made one with sinners
Will he back down / recant / and accept the takeover bid? Will He call security? / Will he send for angelic reinforcement? / Will He dodge the truth / and save His own skin?
In other words / will He like Pilate / be a sloth?
No / He will not / He does not
He faced powerful temptations to cave in But never once / did He capitulate
He is unruffled / as He stands before Pilate / unshaken / before His executioners / unswerving / in His insistence that He speaks the truth / wholehearted / in His commitment to His mission / unflagging / in His zeal for His Father’s Kingdom / staunch / in His commitment to Scripture
In fact / He tells us not to be afraid of those who can to kill your body but cannot touch your soul
Let’s forget the sentimental caricature of gentle Jesus meek and mild / Of course He’s gentle / meek and mild
But He isn’t slushy or flabby / He’s piercing / pungent / unyielding / oftentimes caustic / He insulted respectable priests / called them hypocrites / He threw greedy merchants out of the Temple / He showed no diffidence before wealthy people / He cut through sham / he cut through hypocrisy / He cared for no man’s applause or approval / He didn’t soft-pedal His claim to deity / He remained resolutely true / to His mission
Dorothy Sayers in her book Creed or Chaos / said: “We cannot blink the fact that gentle Jesus / meek and mild was so stiff in His opinions / so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of the church
stoned / hunted from place to place and finally gibbeted as a firebrand / and a public danger”
Compared to men without chest / Jesus stands out in stark contrast
* Unlike Pilate who’s apathetic / He is zealous
* Unlike Peter who’s deceptive / He is truthful
* Unlike Herod / who’s fearful of people’s opinion / He’s undaunted
And standing in His corner / looking Pilate straight into his eyes He says: “For this reason I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth” / John 18:37
Now the thing is this / The Bible commands us to fight sloth / Rom 12:11 / “Do not be slothful in zeal / be fervent in spirit” Rev 3:19 / “be zealous”
They’re imperatives / They’re commands to be obeyed! When you work at fighting apathy / you’re not being moralistic / You’re desiring to be conformed / to Christ / for His glory
And you can die to your apathy and sloth / you can be like those valiant people you admire / who speak without fear or favour
And bottom-line / what will heal you of your sloth / is believing the gospel / It is believing and trusting Jesus / to be your ultimate security
The only way for you / to stop marching to another person’s drumbeat is for you / to find your acceptance in Christ
Until you look to Christ as your ultimate security
Until you come to see that God’s approval of you is all you’ll ever need you’ll look to people to give you that you’ll be prone to lying / cheating / cutting corners
When you stop looking to people / for acceptance and recognition and rest in Christ’s total approval of you / you no longer need / anyone’s acceptance to validate you / you’ll stop trying to project a good image of himself / you’ll be healed / of your fear of people / you’ll be bold and resolute / you’ll be fearless
you’ll start standing up to your convictions / You will cease to be a sloth!
The day you stop looking to people’s approval for your worth / that’s is the day you die to sloth and apathy
When that day comes / perhaps for the first time / you will see a fearless you
______________________________________________________________
He faced powerful temptations to cave in But never once / did He capitulate
He is unruffled / as He stands before Pilate / unshaken / before His executioners / unswerving / in His insistence that He speaks the truth / wholehearted / in His commitment to His mission / unflagging / in His zeal for His Father’s Kingdom / staunch / in His commitment to Scripture
In fact / He tells us not to be afraid of those who can to kill your body but cannot touch your soul
Let’s forget the sentimental caricature of gentle Jesus meek and mild / Of course He’s gentle / meek and mild
But He isn’t slushy or flabby / He’s piercing / pungent / unyielding / oftentimes caustic / He insulted respectable priests / called them hypocrites / He threw greedy merchants out of the Temple / He showed no diffidence before wealthy people / He cut through sham / he cut through hypocrisy / He cared for no man’s applause or approval / He didn’t soft-pedal His claim to deity / He remained resolutely true / to His mission
Dorothy Sayers in her book Creed or Chaos / said: “We cannot blink the fact that gentle Jesus / meek and mild was so stiff in His opinions / so inflammatory in His language that He was thrown out of the church
stoned / hunted from place to place and finally gibbeted as a firebrand / and a public danger”
Compared to men without chest / Jesus stands out in stark contrast
* Unlike Pilate who’s apathetic / He is zealous
* Unlike Peter who’s deceptive / He is truthful
* Unlike Herod / who’s fearful of people’s opinion / He’s undaunted
And standing in His corner / looking Pilate straight into his eyes He says: “For this reason I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth” / John 18:37
Now the thing is this / The Bible commands us to fight sloth / Rom 12:11 / “Do not be slothful in zeal / be fervent in spirit” Rev 3:19 / “be zealous”
They’re imperatives / They’re commands to be obeyed! When you work at fighting apathy / you’re not being moralistic / You’re desiring to be conformed / to Christ / for His glory
And you can die to your apathy and sloth / you can be like those valiant people you admire / who speak without fear or favour
And bottom-line / what will heal you of your sloth / is believing the gospel / It is believing and trusting Jesus / to be your ultimate security
The only way for you / to stop marching to another person’s drumbeat is for you / to find your acceptance in Christ
Until you look to Christ as your ultimate security
Until you come to see that God’s approval of you is all you’ll ever need you’ll look to people to give you that you’ll be prone to lying / cheating / cutting corners
When you stop looking to people / for acceptance and recognition and rest in Christ’s total approval of you / you no longer need / anyone’s acceptance to validate you / you’ll stop trying to project a good image of himself / you’ll be healed / of your fear of people / you’ll be bold and resolute / you’ll be fearless
you’ll start standing up to your convictions / You will cease to be a sloth!
The day you stop looking to people’s approval for your worth / that’s is the day you die to sloth and apathy
When that day comes / perhaps for the first time / you will see a fearless you
______________________________________________________________
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