Gateway Church Sermons
Ashley Road Site | 23rd June 2024 | Matthew Painter | Indifference & Ingratitude
Good morning, can you hear me okay? - Yeah. - Is that coming through? Let me just grab the stand. Just wanted to start, I wanted to tell you something about me that you may or may not know. So I actually learned to ride a motorbike before I learned to drive a car. - Yes. - Yes. (audience laughs) Thank you for the cheer of support. Now the last motorbike that I had was a Honda VFR 750. It was capable of a top speed of 152 miles per hour. It would do not to 60 in four seconds. It had a loud aftermarket exhaust. And I remember at the time of owning that bike, I would describe my commute to work like taking a rollercoaster ride. It was absolutely thrilling and incredible. But I traded it all in for a Honda Jazz. (audience laughs) A Honda Jazz. The most slow, reliable, unexciting, boringest car that you could ever possibly own. And unlike my motorbike, it never caused anybody any offense. Owning a motorbike would occasionally cause offense. People would say, "Are you sure that you wanna own a motorbike?" You know, they're very dangerous, they're reckless. Think of your family, is that the right thing to do? Nobody ever challenged me on owning a Honda Jazz, ever. And you know what, the Honda Jazz, it wasn't even a cool color. It was the classic grandad gray. It was the most boring car that I've ever owned. And I must be honest with you, that I really regret getting rid of my motorbike. It made logical and practical sense at the time. But I lost something great when I did. And I tell you this, because we as Christians are called to be distinct and different from the world around us. We are called to turn heads, we are called to divide, opinions sometimes even cause offense. We are not called to be the same as the world. We're not called to quietly fit in to the background and be boring and unimpacked for like a Honda Jazz. And I think that the church has lost something of this over the last few years. The evangelical church has exchanged something thrilling, even dangerous for a quiet life. We've exchanged the eternal for the temporary. We've exchanged the will of God for earthly desires. Let's read our passage of this preaching series, which is one John two, 15 to 17. And it says this, "Do not love the world "or anything in the world. "If anyone loves the world, love for the Father "is not in them. "For everything in the world, the lust of the flesh, "the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, "comes not from the Father, but from the world. "The world and its desires pass away, "but whoever does the will of God lives forever." You know, loving the world is easy, isn't it? Being a Christian who looks and talks the same just as everybody else is easy. It's easy to fit into the background to be non-offensive and unimpactful. But today, we are looking at how can we overcome the world? How do we remain with hearts that are red hots for Jesus and not for the world? You know, over this preaching series, we're looking at worldliness through the perspective of what we've entitled suburban sins. And these are sins which are subtle, but are dangerous sins. These are sins that can ensnare us and cause us to be ineffective in our following of Jesus, sins that we need to take seriously and root out in our lives. And today, I'm talking about indifference and ingratitude. Let's start by talking about indifference. Indeference is a lack of interest, desire, passion or zeal. It can be visibly seen as a lack of motivation or action, a lack of being moved or stirred to do something, just a passivity or an apathy to what is going on. And specifically today, we're looking at the indifference to the will of God, the indifference to being stirred and moved to God to action, to sharing the gospel and making disciples of others. You see, we are called to be salt and light. We're called to be distinct from the world around us. To be a beacon of light shining out in the darkness, we are not called to light a lamp and put it under a bowl the Bible tells us. And I must confess, I am very indifferent sometimes to things that go on. I find that I can be very indifferent to the real life struggles that I hear about, of real people in the news every single day. The other day, I was reading a story of this guy who'd had this really impoverished and hard upbringing. And I just felt indifferent to all of it. This guy grew up and when he came home from school, his parents couldn't afford for him, Sky TV. Now, of course, I'm talking about Rishi Sunak. I mean, what did he do when he came home from school? No cartoon network, no Nickelodeon. I mean, what an impoverished and difficult childhood he must have had. And I'll be honest, I felt fairly indifferent to his struggles. I also felt quite indifferent when Nigel Farage took a milkshake to the face whilst he was campaigning throughout Clapton. And I certainly felt indifferent for Kia Stama when he was interrupted during his manifesto launch. You know, and I'll be fairly honest, I feel quite indifferent to the up and coming general election. Maybe you feel the same. I'm not feeling overly stirred or passionate or motivated by it. Now, that doesn't mean that I won't be diligent and participate in it. So I am gonna vote, I'm gonna keep reading up, I'm gonna keep praying, asking that God would guide me and guide us and that we would be active in it. But my zeal and enthusiasm for it is fairly low. But you know what? There are things that I am more passive about now, things that I actually feel, I think are more important than even our up and coming general election. You know, when I was younger, I was so passionate about sharing the gospel with others. I would tell all of my friends at school, I would stand up and defend the faith when my biology teacher would tell us that there is no God. I would regularly spend the weekends going into Bournemouth Town Centre and talking to groups of young people about Jesus. I would even stand up in the square and preach the gospel in the hope that somebody would respond. And I did this because I was zealous. I had this burning desire to see people saved and to see the gospel advance. There was an urgent need for people to hear the gospel. You know, I didn't wait for anyone to tell me that I could do this. I didn't wait for somebody else to organise a group. I just went out and I shared my faith with others because I felt stirred to do so. I was diligent and intentional about it. And I even saw a number of my friends and my colleagues become Christians as a result of sharing the gospel. You know, that isn't how I spend most of my weekends now. I don't spend most of my weekends getting up and going into the town and telling people about Jesus. And I asked myself, you know, have I been caught up with the world and its desires? And I caught up with something temporary over the will of God. And here's the really difficult question. Am I more in love with the world and its desires than with the will of God and being obedient following him with my life? You see, we see indifference when we have lost our sense of gospel adventure, when we have lost our desire to see God's kingdom come in all of its fullness, when we've lost our sense of excitement over the mission of God. And my question is, have we traded taking up our cross and following Christ for something that is quite quiet, quite inoffensive, quite private? I'm talking about how indifference and apathy has crept into our hearts and has caused us to be numb. Dorothy Sayers, when talking about apathy, and I think the same can be said of indifference as this, she says, this is the sin which believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, only remains alive because there is nothing that it would die for. You see, indifference is a subtle sin. It's something that can slowly creep into our lives over time. It's something that we can easily defend. We can even desire to be indifferent. You know, we can read verses like one Thessalonians 4-11, where Paul says that we should make it our ambition to leave a quiet life, to mind our business, to be respected by outsiders, and we can wrongly justify our indifference. I can say, well, I'm just leading the quiet life. I'm not causing any harm. I'm just driving around in a Honda Jazz. That's not doing any offense. When in fact, what we are doing is we are sacrificing obedience to God for a life of comfort. You see, indifference promises us comfort and peace. It says you want a life of peace. Don't really get moved by anything. Don't be stirred by anything. Don't take action. Don't take any risks. That could be dangerous. It could, you could fail. You could step out in faith and look like a fool. People could reject you. Why would you want to tell others about Jesus? I mean, surely if they wanted to know, they would come and ask you, wouldn't they? But the promise of peace and comfort is a lie. Indifference breeds strife. It breeds this constant internal wrestling, which is the opposite of peace. It just leaves you feeling numb. You know, I'll be honest, in all of my goals and aspirations, every time I've written a five-year plan or I've done some yearly objectives, I've never said on that I want to be more numb. You know, we can even be indifferent and be busy living a Christian life, doing Christian work. We can serve in every church team. We can get involved in supporting people in our communities. We can lead life groups. We can be leading worship up at the front. You could even be preaching the gospel boldly during a church service, but you could walk out through those doors and be indifferent to the need of the gospel for the world around us. You see, it's important that we see indifference for what it is, and that is a sin. Indifference is a real and dangerous sin because it is so easy to justify. It is so easy to hide behind than to make excuses for. My hope is that God reveals to all of us the reality of the fight that we have on our hands against indifference. In Revelation 3, verses one to three, God warns the church of Sardis. And he says, "I know your deeds. "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. "Wake up, strengthen what remains and is about to die, "for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of God. "Remember therefore what you received and heard, "hold fast to it and repent." I see God does not want us to be indifferent this morning. What about ingratitude? Tim Keller says, "In gratitude is a fundamental "rather than superficial sin. "It is part and parcel of pride and self-centeredness, "a deep denial of how dependent we are on God "and on one another. "In gratitude arises when we don't think we owe anyone "anything and we fail to recognize "the good things and graces and gifts received." Now I think that if you want to see ingratitude best displayed, you just need to look at a child at Christmas time, okay? Now, one of my children who will remain nameless a couple of years ago wanted Lego for Christmas. Love's Lego. Now what they hadn't properly communicated to people was that there's a very particular type of Lego that they want and that is called Lego Friends, okay? Lego Friends. And so when my parents presented them with this great big box of Sonic the Hedgehog Lego, gratitude was nowhere to be seen, okay? It was written all over their little ungrateful face as they tossed this gift, this expensive and very generous gift aside. But it's very easy to attribute ingratitude to children, isn't it? Because they are so much more expressive and honest about how they feel. They haven't yet learned to hide their ingratitude and put on a smile and say thank you. But we as the grown-ups in the room, we can be just as caught up with ingratitude, but we're just far better at hiding it or justifying it. And actually we can learn something from our kids, now I'm not saying that we should sit there with a terrible ungrateful face at Christmas time, but actually we can learn something by being more honest with ourselves and more importantly with God when we feel times of ingratitude. Tim Keller goes on to say that ingratitude has a hardening effect, leaving us in a state of perpetual discontent, short-tempered and rarely at peace or rest. Life without the 11ing effects of gratitude can lead to a sense of dissatisfaction with the way that things are, which can drive us to make things better. However, this can also lead to a never-ending cycle of dissatisfaction and discontent. And let us consider the state of our own hearts this morning. And I want to look at three ways in which we can see ingratitude come out in our lives and in that of the church. The first is in discontentment or dissatisfaction. Are you somebody who is never satisfied? What is it that is stirring you in your heart? Are you somebody who you never think that you have enough? You are driven by a love of the material or a love of money. You've always got to have the latest and best thing which will satisfy you just for a moment and then instantly will leave you discontent and wanting afterwards. Do you constantly compare what you have to those around you? And here's a question for you. How do you feel when you look at somebody who has more than you? And how do you feel when you look at somebody who has less than you? This can tell you a lot about the state of your heart this morning. You know, there was a young guy who used to work for me. He was a really hard-working guy, a really smart guy, a really ambitious guy. And, you know, he moved on from my team after a couple of years and he traveled and did all sorts of cool stuff. And I'd regularly kind of meet up with him and chat to him. And the last time I met up with him, he was so unhappy and he was so unhappy, not because he didn't have a good career, not because he didn't have a good salary, not because he didn't have a fantastic future ahead of him. He was so unhappy because a couple of his peers have been promoted quicker than he had. And he knew a couple of people that had a little bit more money than he did. And he was so dissatisfied and it robbed him of joy. And as a result, he quit his job. He quit his job over this and left. And I tried to counsel him and say, look, don't compare yourself to those around you. It doesn't matter. There's always someone that earns more. There is always somebody who rightly or wrongly gets promoted before you. It doesn't matter. You've got to enjoy and be thankful for what you have. You know, in his dissatisfaction, it resulted in a real lack of joy for him and it robbed him. But it didn't rob the people who got promoted before him or got paid that little bit more a year than he did. It was him who was suffering. You know, we can even admire people or want to model after people that are full of ambition. But actually, sometimes these people can be full of discontentment. People that have achieved great success but can perhaps be crippled with discontent. Perhaps we too are hiding behind such things. Secondly, self-centeredness. Are you focused on your own wants, desires, or dislikes? Is your focus around yourself? Are most of your decisions based around what you need? What is your prayer life like this morning? Do you spend most of your time praying and focusing on the things that you want? Are you treating Jesus like he is a magic wishing well? You know, hoping that he will bless you with health, wealth and prosperity whilst outwardly rejecting a prosperity gospel? How much time do you spend focusing on the needs of others? How much time do you spend listening to other people focusing on what they need? Are you somebody who is generous or somebody who is stingy? Are you self-sacrificial or are you protective over what you have? You know, I made a conscious decision a few years ago that I would much rather be somebody who is taken advantage of than to not be generous or to be stingy and to be tight. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be wise. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't make sensible decisions. But I would much rather have been taken advantage of multiple times in my life and to remain generous than to be stingy and to be withholding. This is in the same way that God has been so generous and so good to us. Let us do that to others as well. OK, thirdly, are you a complainer? Do you complain a lot? And hopefully, a sad and conviction truth is that the church sometimes can be a place that is not lacking in complaints. We, all as Christians, have complained about all manner of things, don't we sometimes? You know, the worship was too loud or it was too quiet. I don't like the song choice. What's going on? You know, a personal one. Well, how is it that all the biscuits are gone by the time that I get there? Those children, again. Totally unacceptable. I don't like the preacher. I don't like the preaching series. Why aren't we talking more about this or talking more about that? And if you are itching to complain about something this morning, here is a perfect one that I guarantee will cause you some sort of conflict in the coming weeks. And that is the football and the church calendar, OK? I guarantee you that at some point, there will be an England game that will conflict with, I don't know, a prayer meeting or the church weekend away, something is going to come up and people are going to be unhappy on either side of this. So what will happen will be there will be a conflict because of this and that there will be a difficult decision made of, well, do we move this meeting because we don't want to cause people to stumble, who want to go and see the football and let's move it a day or something else? And then there will be people that really think we shouldn't move this or do this. And actually, no matter what happens, it won't bring about a kind of an unhappiness, shall we say, but I would just encourage you to pray and to think that through as and when it comes up. You know, often complaining in this way, it doesn't bring about what we are looking for. It doesn't bring about joy in the process. Next time that you have something to complain about, ask yourself, is this edifying? Is will this build others up? Is this for the goods of the church? And I'd encourage you to pray about it. On a serious note, if you do have a real and legitimate complaint that you need to make, I would like to refer you to our official gateway church complaint mailbox, which is richardstamp@gatewaychurch.com. (audience laughs) Once again, that's richardstamp@gatewaychurch.com. You know, it's a trivial example, but ask yourselves, are you somebody who complains a lot? And do you need to do something about that? Does this reveal ingratitude in your heart? You know, there's lots of ways that ingratitude can play out, but in my personal experience, it is like drinking salt water, isn't it? You're thirsty for something, and you're just never satisfied again and again and again. And it isn't life giving, actually. It's a sin, it's a sin that we need to root out that God takes seriously. Paul in Romans 1 talks about the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against godlessness and wickedness. And one of the ways that that godlessness and wickedness is displayed is through a lack of not giving thanks to God. And ultimately, this is because of ingratitude. We mustn't downplay or minimize the dangerous effects of these suburban sins in our lives. And so I want to talk about how we can respond to indifference in gratitude. And I want to propose that there are four ways, four hours, which is resist, repent, receive, and reform. You know, we need to resist and push back suburban sin in our lives and in our society, even if we are met with opposition. Satan would love nothing more than to keep Christians in bondage and fear and keeping us ineffective in our obedience for Christ, and ultimately see us robbed of joy. We need to recognize that we are in a battle and that we need to fight back. John Owen said, be killing sin or sin, be killing you. What does it look like to be to kill indifference? It looks like to take action, to be diligent, to be faithful to God, isn't always about a feeling. You know, it's not always about being stirred up and motivated, although we should pray for that. We should pray that we get that burning sense of the Holy Spirit to go out there and to share the gospel. But sometimes despite that, what we need to do is we need to be diligent and we need to be faithful. You see, we can feel indifferent and we need to be diligent and take action. We need to pray regularly for the lost. We need to pray for the Spirit's help. We need to be diligent in looking for opportunities to share the good news, even praying that God would give us more opportunities to do so. To put to death and gratitude in our lives, we need to make thankfulness a regular part of our daily routine. We need to thank God for all that He does, for our salvation, that we have been forgiven our sin and that we are now children of God, for all the ways that God has blessed us. We need to recognize the truth and all the gifts that we have received from God. You know, as a family, we try to put this into practice. We pray together often, particularly in the car, and we'll try to intentionally practice thanking God for all the things that He has done for us, all the ways that He has been good to us. And I tell you something, practicing thankfulness brings about joy and contentment. Rather than focusing all the trivial things that I don't have, I focus on how much I've been given, how much God has blessed us, the miracles that we have seen performed in our lives, the signs of mercy that He has displayed to us. And that lifts our eyes from our own, sometimes our personal circumstances or our frustrations, doesn't it? It fights back against self-centeredness. It soothes the frustrations of discontentment and silences that complaints. Secondly, we need to repent. We need to repent of our sin. You know, one thing that struck me whilst I was preparing this is that how amazing is it that we can repent of sin, that we can come to God and we can find forgiveness and acceptance? You see, God shows us the sin in our lives. He shows us how these acceptable suburban sins have gotten a hold of us. But Jesus being the complete opposite of indifferent. He wasn't indifferent to our situation, to the problem and pain of sin in our lives. He wasn't indifferent to our need for salvation. And so He died in our place to pay the price for our sin. And now He calls us to repent and believe in Him for the forgiveness of our sins. You know, how amazing is it that we can repent? Repentance is often seen as a dirty word, isn't it? Something that we should feel ashamed of. But there is no shame and condemnation in Christ. There is no shame associated with repentance. It is something that is good and life-giving because it brings about change between us and God. It is wonderful that we can come to God and we can restore what is broken and we can find mercy again. You know, brothers and sisters, I want you to see that this is something that we should be immensely thankful for, that we can repent and that God will forgive us our sin. Repentance and forgiveness are God's grace to us. And so do you need to do business with God this morning? Thirdly, we need to receive. We need to be alert to God's blessings of common grace and receive them joyfully. We need to be intentional about giving thanks to God for the things He has provided for us and not be blind to His many blessings in our lives. You know, I'm incredible thankful that my family was born in this point in history. If my family had been born 100 years ago, two of my children would not be alive today. You know, Evie, my eldest daughter at age six had a six centimeter brain tumour. She had to have this huge 12-hour surgery and to this day, she is completely clear, completely recovered, no signs, no symptoms. She is completely well. And that is God's amazing grace and goodness to her and to our family. On my middle daughter, Kaylee, who almost three years ago was diagnosed with type one diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease whereby your immune system wrongly attacks the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas. This is a lifelong condition which does impact her and our daily lives. You know, even just over the last couple of weeks, we've had issues where her insulin pump has failed and she's had really high blood sugars throughout the night and she's felt really ill and she's woken up and she's been sick. You know, I could choose to respond to that by going, God, this is so unfair. Like, how dare you do this? I could be so angry towards God. But actually, what we choose to do is to give thanks for the ways that God has been good through that situation. I choose to give thanks for the fact that Kaylee has always received the latest and best medical technology far sooner than she was ever supposed to. We got told, you're gonna have to wait 18 months, two years, three years. She got stuff within three months and six months. She got it all rapidly quickly and that is God's goodness and blessing to us as a family. I am grateful that when she was really sick, we felt prompted to go and take her to the hospital before she passed out because of going into a diabetic coma. I'm grateful for that. That is God's goodness to us. You know, sometimes we need to dig to find thankfulness but I promise you, you won't need to dig very hard to find it, it is there. You know, our ultimate sense of thankfulness comes from Jesus' finished work on the cross. We are sinners caught up in suburban sin and we can know forgiveness and grace from God. Because Jesus died to pay the price for our sins, we have ultimate and eternal hope in God right now and for the future. I'm always amazed at how some believers can weather such difficult times of suffering with such joy and I think key to this is their overwhelming sense of thankfulness. You know, I am continually in awe of Morris and Grace Chabamba who despite Morris continually being unwell, being in hospital for months, having just come out now back in hospital again, are full of thankfulness and that's not to say that this hasn't been a tough time for them as a family. Of course it has, but they show us such thankfulness and even this week, you know, I had a couple of messages through and Grace was asking for prayer and she ends her prayer saying God is good, amen. It was full of thankfulness. And even yesterday we got some prayer points which you know, if you sign up for the 12 hours of prayer, you'll see on there that the four prayer points, the first one, thank God for his faithfulness and protection during this time. Pray that the family would be strengthened, that the Lord reveals his glory through this situation and fourthly, pray that Morris would dance again and that he would be healed. The first thing that she's asked us to pray for is that they would continue to be thankful and that is something that we can learn from. You know, these are people who are diligent with thankfulness and know the joy of the Lord of their strength as a result. You know, I got a real sense as I was preparing for this that we need to lift up and support one another in hard times when we are feeling weak when we cannot do so ourselves. You know, there's a story in Exodus 17 where God's people are fighting against the Amalekites and whenever Moses lifts up his hands, the army of God progress and they defeat the army of the Amalekites, when Moses gets tired and weak, the Amalekites step forward and they take over the army of God's people and so Aaron and her, they come and they hold up Moses' hands when he's too weak to do so. And as a result, God's people defeat the Amalekites in battle. You know, my friends, there are going to be times when we need to hold up one another's hands. I really feel that for us. Finally, we need to reform. And now I'm not talking about Nigel Farage this morning. It is about us being a different people. People with different values, a different way of life, being distinct from the world, not caught up with the love of the world, but for our love of God. This reform needs to start with us. It needs to start with the church. If we are resisting indifference by being diligent, if we are overcoming ingratitude with thankfulness, a natural outworking of this will be sharing the gospel. Brothers and sisters, we are called to play our part in the mission of God and to see people saved. Our own thankfulness for being saved, our own gratitude to God will naturally outworking, wanting to tell others about him. We are called to be diligent in proclaiming the gospel. Jesus is the hope of the world, and we need to get that message out there. Don't be indifferent to the need of salvation for those around you. God has uniquely placed you and gifted you to reach the people in your life around you. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. Let's step into that promise this morning. I'd love us to end and do some a little bit differently this morning, so perhaps if the bank had come up, maybe you can stand. And I came across this Puritan prayer, which I'd like us to read together, which I really think helps us, or help us to respond. So I'll lead us, and let's read this together. Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly, Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live in the depths, but see thee in the heights, hemmed in by mountains of sin, I behold thy glory. Let me learn by paradox that the way down is up, that to be low is to be high, that to be broken heart is the healed heart, that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit, that the repenting soul is the victorious soul, that to have nothing is to possess all, that to bear the cross is to wear the crown, that to give is to receive, that the valley is the place of vision. Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest wells, the deepest wells, and the deeper the wells, the brighter thy stars shine. Let me find thy light in my darkness, thy life in my death, thy joy in my sorrow, thy grace in my sin, thy riches in my poverty, thy glory in my valley, amen. [MUSIC] St. Christ is my reward, Christ is my reward, to all of my divorce, now there's nothing in this world