For years I went through the motions of
religion in that I attended church regularly each
week.
I served in some capacity by being a
Sunday school teacher and I tithed to my
local church faithfully.
I was a good church boy in that
I had cleaned myself up enough on the
outside to pass muster with my church friends
on Sunday.
I even enjoyed the fellowship at church of
being in a small group that met for
dinner once a month, but something was missing.
With all my religious duties and activities, there
was still a vast hole in my life
because I was a casual Christian in a
careless world.
And that's the title of my message today,
friends.
A casual Christian in a careless world.
I was dutifully serving God, but without a
fire for God.
I served God with a divided heart because
part of me was in the church, but
most of me was still in love with
the world.
I enjoyed the game of golf, and it
was an addiction as I spent countless hours
each week chasing a little white ball through
forest and field.
I was passionate about golf, but I wasn't
passionate about God.
I didn't know a thing about the cross
and the life of a believer, and I
was completely unfamiliar with the doctrine of the
Lordship of Christ.
I was a good church boy when at
church, but I often lived like the devil
when at home.
Like I said, I was a casual Christian
in a careless world.
I don't believe I was alone, friends.
Many of my church buddies were just like
me.
They were religious and pious when needed, but
mostly full of the world and prone to
indulgence in sin.
But we all looked good sitting in a
Bible study group, even though we couldn't wait
to get outside to tell a dirty joke
as soon as it was over.
I don't think it's a stretch, friends, to
say that casual Christians make up the majority
in our churches today.
It's easy to be a casual Christian because
it doesn't cost anything, but there's no sacrifice
attending it.
You just show up at a church function
and act your part and go home to
your real life where self sits on the
throne of the heart and rules there.
But true Christianity was never meant to be
casual where you blend in with the world,
but rather Biblical Christianity is counter-cultural to
the sinful society in which it exists.
In the book of Acts, the early Christians
traveled in one direction, and pagan society went
in the opposite direction, and when they met
there was either a clash or a riot.
The early Christians were described as these that
have come here also have turned the world
upside down.
But the modern church today, so full of
casual Christians, really isn't turning anything upside down,
much less the world.
We are content to be as religious as
we can and serve God as dutifully as
we can, so long as God doesn't get
in the way of our daily living.
And I was quite content being a casual
Christian for years, until one day God sent
me under the preaching of Dr. Stephen F.
Olford.
I attended a week of preaching institutes where
Dr. Olford was the main speaker, and God
used him to turn my world upside down.
I was confronted with my shallowness, and I
was confronted with my sinfulness.
After a couple of days under Dr. Olford's
preaching, I felt as if I had been
beaten up with a baseball bat, and I
needed it.
He confronted me with the absolute lordship of
Jesus Christ, and the necessity of being filled
with the Holy Spirit through a life of
surrender.
I learned that, as a believer, I was
bought with a price, and the price was
Christ's blood, and that my time was no
longer my own.
My money was no longer my own.
My body was no longer my own.
Christ must be a complete master.
I saw that, in the life of a
for the Holy Spirit to be present without
being president, to be dormant without being dominant,
to be resident without reigning.
But when sin is exposed and self is
executed, the Holy Spirit can fill to overflowing
and anoint with authority and power.
Two verses were brought to my attention, Ephesians
5.18 and 2 Corinthians 3.18, and
together they were an imperative to be obeyed.
The first, and be not drunk with wine
wherein is excess, but be filled with the
Spirit.
And secondly, now the Lord is that Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty.
This can be understood, where the Spirit is
Lord, that is, where He is given His
true deity and sovereignty, there is liberty.
There can be the fullness of the Holy
Spirit in the life of a believer who
is willing to bow daily and hourly to
the sovereignty of Christ and to the authority
of the Word.
I learned that for me, to part with
my casual Christianity, then self had to go
the way of the cross, as seen in
Galatians 2.20. I am crucified with Christ,
nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me.
In the life which I now live in
the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me.
Listen friends, when a casual Christian is confronted
with his reality alongside a bloodstained Christ who
held nothing back at Calvary, then how can
we hold anything back from Him?
Like the poem states, only one life which
will soon be passed, only what's done for
Christ will last.