Stuck Going Through the Motions

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. 

Titus 2:11–14

Going through the motions is only going to get us so far.

But for many of us, going through the motions is what we know, what we’re comfortable with. The problem is that we may not feel invested.

There’s a big difference the bacon and eggs—not just because of the different animals they come from, but how they come. Pigs give their lives. God doesn’t just want us to go through the motions—he wants our hearts and minds.

Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment.” (Matthew 22:35–38)

What Jesus said then applies to us today.

When we sing, we can get caught going through the motions. It’s not about “sounding nice,” it’s about the most important instrument we all have—the heart.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Colossians 3:16)

Singing with grace in our hearts to the Lord is going to manifest itself to others. Just think about it.

And when we pray together—we can definitely get caught going through the motions by not even paying attention. It’s about focusing on what is being said. I realize this can be challenging because with our eyes closed our minds may wander. So put in the effort to focus.

And when we consider the word of God together in a sermon—participate as much as you can by thinking through the things being presented. Many of my sermons are full of scripture reading. I do this on purpose because I want all of us to be presented with God’s way of thinking: his words, his mind.

Zeal means we really want to please our Lord and Savior in doing the things He has commanded us—not with a complaining heart, or a divided heart—distracted by thinking about all the things we feel we might be missing out on. If God showed us the zeal we show Him, where would we be?

Even in our giving, Paul urges us—

So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

Where Is Our Zeal?

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:11–14).

Zeal is essential in our service to the Lord. Consider the Lord’s zeal for the Temple:

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (John 2:14–17).

Zeal isn’t everything, though. Zeal must be tempered by a knowledge of what it is that God wants (Ephesians 5:6–10). For example, the apostle Paul bore witness to the zeal of some of those Israelites for God, but their zeal was “not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Romans 10:1–4).

We say things like, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” This is not entirely untrue. But with the Lord and his family — our family in Christ — we’re supposed to grow together; we’re not supposed to be so petty. This doesn’t mean that everything is going to go perfectly at all times, but it does mean that we’re going to bear with one another in love, being eager to maintain unity in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:2–3).

Working together requires love. “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. . . . Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:11, 13–15).

Working together requires patience. The first thing the apostle Paul mentions about love is that it is patient (1 Corinthians 13:4). “And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all” (1 Thessalonians 5:14).

Working together requires working together. “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Proverbs 18:1). I know there are times when we might want some space to ourselves. I don’t believe this is always wrong, but if we get to the point that we feel a lot better being alone than with being with brothers and sisters, then there’s a problem. Congregational growth often doesn’t happen because not everyone’s working toward it, which means they’re not even praying about it.

Paul wrote, “Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Ephesians 4:15–16).

If we think we have nothing to contribute to the growth of the congregation, or we think that’s what others are thinking, then let me be clear: that’s Satan in your ear. Every member has an important part to play in the body of Christ:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. . . . For the body does not consist of one member but of many. . . . But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. . . . Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it (1 Corinthians 12:12, 14, 18, 27).

So, where’s our zeal for the Lord? Discouragement is real, and can directly affect our zeal for the Lord, and for our brothers and sisters in the Lord. The solution? Look longingly to the cross! “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. . . . but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6, 8).

The Past Is Passed

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13–14).

Too often people have assumed that Paul is referring to one’s past failures. But in the larger context of the chapter, Paul is actually addressing the past’s successes.

For we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless (Philippians 3:3–6).

Paul’s point in mentioning these things — even his zeal for God as revealed by his persecution of the church — is that “whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ” (verses 7–8).

The word “rubbish,” by the way, means more than just trash. The Greek word is only found here in the New Testament, but it is used in other ancient sources as dung — “The vulgar term stresses the force of the renunciation he has made for Christ’s sake” (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, abridged, p. 1052).

OUR TROPHIES ARE TRASH

And so the real point — and maybe even the difficult point to accept — is that our trophies, our successes, when compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ, are not merely to be thrown away, but are as revolting to us as dung.

KNOWING THE LORD

“Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the Lord” ( Jeremiah 9:23–24).

Do we delight in knowing God? Is He nothing more than an afterthought, or acquaintance? The relationship God is seeking with us is likened to a father/son relationship (Romans 8:12–17; Hebrews 2:10–13). But beyond this relationship, God likens His relationship with the church as a husband and wife (Ephesians 5:25–33; Revelation 21:2, 9).

Again, the past — with its inherent successes and failures — is passed. “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this” (Ecclesiastes 7:10). Satan sometimes traps us in the past. We dwell on things that, in the grand scheme, do not matter to our soul’s salvation.

Letting go of past failings is difficult enough, but it is especially challenging to release our minds from dwelling on our past successes. But if we value Christ and an eternal home in Heaven, then we will cling to Him as Paul did — “not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:9–11).