Motivating Lethargic Christians Part I

[00:00:04] Today's episode is entitled Motivating the Farrgic Christians. This will be the first of a two part and it has to do with this question of what to do about the logic, Christians in the church. And I've been suggesting that one of the reasons why this

[00:00:49] letter G begins is because we start treating Christians at a very early stage in a Christian life in the wrong way. Particularly we've been thinking about converts to Christianity, not those who grow up within the folds of the church itself. That's a separate problem.

[00:01:08] But converts come in, we've been saying and they come in either with no requirements before or after, or they come in with some kind of course that they take for six weeks or six months before they're allowed in the church.

[00:01:23] And then when they get in they think they've done their job of studying and they don't have to study anymore. And so they settled down in the church and do very little thereafter in the way of learning or changing

[00:01:37] of their own lives. They've made it. They're in the church. They're graduated from the pre-admission course. And so baptism comes at the end of some six-week course or something and then they come.

[00:01:50] Well that's a tragic mistake when we're saying first because it reverses the biblical order of things. In the Bible people are baptized on the spot as they're writing along in a chariot. They stop and get baptized.

[00:02:08] They get baptized in a jail and fill a pie and so on. They're in the visible church under its care and discipline immediately before they get any instruction or any courses. Now,

[00:02:21] when they're in the care of the church and under its discipline you can see to it that they attend those courses. You can see to it that they understand you can see to it that they grow because there is a certain authority over the person

[00:02:36] who is a member of the church of Christ which the elders may exercise over him in that church. This is all capsulized in the Great Commission as we call it in Matthew 28 where Jesus says to make his disciples,

[00:02:50] that means students, learners or pupils of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to observe all that he commanded. Now, notice that that is given to us that great commission in educational terms.

[00:03:13] The education is not done before the baptism. They become disciples or they become pupils by being baptized or matriculated into Christ's school and their whole lifetime as Christians in the church is a lifetime of study. And it's done under the discipline of the church which insists that

[00:03:33] people study or they then are going to be disciplined. And so we have people then who are in the church being taught and the church itself is a teaching organization and ought to be viewed as such.

[00:03:47] But then secondly we noted that this teaching is not just teaching of facts about Christianity and about the Christian life and about Jesus Christ, but notice as he says in verse 20 of Matthew 28

[00:04:00] this teaching and his church is a different kind of teaching. It is the Hebrew sort of teaching as opposed to the Greek academic teaching. The Hebrew teaching is kind of an apprenticeship or discipleship

[00:04:15] teaching in which a person learns not only what the facts are but what the implications of on life are. And so that person is to be taught Jesus says to observe or to keep or to do all

[00:04:29] the he commanded. This is a teaching that influences and affects get this lifestyle. And here's the crux of the matter. For example, in Ephesians 417 where the Apostle Paul is talking about people who have become converts into the church. He says in Ephesians 417 that this I say and affirm

[00:04:51] together with Lord that you walk no longer as the Gentiles or the heathen also walk. In other words, he's saying in every very strong language. That's what those words that I say and affirm together

[00:05:07] with the Lord mean. Paul was emphasizing things that way. He is saying that the Lord and I are saying to you most emphatically that now that you have become a Christian your lifestyle must change.

[00:05:22] Your walk, your daily conduct, your way of living, your way of responding to people and the situation in the circumstances must be entirely different. And so God will not allow Christians to settle down into their old ways when they become Christians. You see in the book of Revelation

[00:05:41] we read about the first love and how those who had that first love had cooled down and how they needed to remember from where they had fallen and have that first love again a second time.

[00:05:53] Well, that's the problem. A new Christian, a new convert is malleable. He is soft. He is pliable. He's ready to be molded. He knows that things must change and indeed the Bible insists

[00:06:09] that they must change. But when he is ready, if we allow him to settle down after having taken a six week course before entering the church and being baptized and then forgetting him and going after

[00:06:22] the next convert, if we allow him to settle down on his knees he'll do just that. But you see he brings into his new Christian life all the old sinful ways and patterns and things that he has

[00:06:35] done. He isn't a changed person as far as these habitual patterns of life go. He's a changed person deep down inside of his heart. He can be different now in every one of these respects he can

[00:06:48] honor God. He can glorify God. He has a new approach to things. He has a new orientation in life. All things have become new in that sense but not all things have become new in actuality and

[00:07:03] that those newness of goals and desires and so on have been actually made a part of his daily life yet. That's why all the epistles are there telling us to do this. Stop doing that. Continue doing this.

[00:07:19] I learned this and so forth. Speaking to Christians whose lives still have to be changed throughout the days to come. And so what we need to do then is to make sure that each new convert

[00:07:31] as he comes into the church begins to realize not only that he has facts to learn but that these facts have tremendous impact upon how he is going to live. That the facts must change his life,

[00:07:45] that he must be a new person, that he must start working on that newness, that all of the old patterns need to be examined, all of the old ways need to be changed, all of the old things that were there

[00:07:58] need alteration. And so we ought to begin by setting up a course of study not only of the facts of Christianity once it becomes a member but we ought to set up counseling because every individual

[00:08:12] who comes into the church comes in with all sorts of wrong things and each person needs a course individualized with himself so that he is counseled about every area of his life and every

[00:08:26] area of his life as he becomes in as a Christian is examined in the light of scriptures. If pastors in churches and deacons and elders were to sit down with people and work with them as soon as they

[00:08:39] come into the church for a period of time changing the ways that they live and helping them, counseling them in the ways that they relate to people at work, at school and in home and so on,

[00:08:50] we wouldn't have all the counseling that we have to do later on. The time would be well invested and Christians would hardly become with Argy. It would realize that this Christian faith meant something that means real change once a person believes and we'd hardly have the

[00:09:08] letter G that we see today and all the heartaches and problems that come later on. More teachers and help us to do things vividly, to do what we ought to do in these respects. Give us information

[00:09:22] about this from the Bible and help us to follow it and pray. And she's his name. Stay tuned for the next episode which also talks about motivating the Tharjit Christians. Have a great day and be blessed.