Malachi 1:2 I have loved you, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us?...
	The beginning of this verse, and in fact, the beginning of this entire book of Malachi highlights an aspect of our lives that needs immediate attention. Over the past weeks, we have been challenged with the reality of what God’s ultimate creation of man is in Christ Jesus. We have been brought into the depths of the heart of God in Christ in humanity. This truth of who we are in Christ, is not limited in the scope of the New Testament. The Old Testament, and the types contained therein all point to the reality of Christ, and the new creation that is produced in His resurrection power.
	This passage in Malachi serves as the bridge between the Old Testament type and the New Testament reality of Christ. It sets forth the cause and the need for the coming Lord, and serves as a principle warning for us to be fervently steadfast in our relationship with God in Christ.
	While we do not want to spend too much time, over the next couple of weeks, dealing with the negative, it would behoove us to be aware of some of the consequences and attitudes that would hinder our relationship with God, that would deny us the immediate access to what God intends for us on a daily basis. There is too much at stake for us to take these spiritual truths lightly. While it is true that God’s Glory will be accomplished in His Church, it is also true that, individually, we can miss much of the glory of being part of the Body of Christ by our simply being apathetic to God.
	One of the reasons that this look at spiritual apathy seems to be so relevant for our current consideration rests with our recent Men’s meeting in which we were brought face-to-face with the urgent request that we, as men, and as a fellowship would not settle for less than that which would fully bring forth our everything unto God. There is a current coursing within us that seems to be centering on that which would please God entirely, and spiritual apathy certainly brings no pleasure to God. He is very clear on that fact as recorded in Rev. 3:16 in His message to the church of the Laodiceans So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 	There seems to be a growing sense, within our fellowship, that the status quo will no longer be sufficient for us. We are realizing that God desires more from us than what He has yet received. There is a developing dissatisfaction with our part in the Sunday worship, as an example. A dissatisfaction, not in that we are called to worship, but in that we are not worshipping God with all our hearts, and all our beings, and all our thoughts. There is a growing sense within us that we are not preparing ourselves to give God the best that we have to offer, that which He so fully deserves. It is a realization that we may be taking God for granted.
	This is a key part of the prophet Malachi’s situation with the Children of Israel as the Old Testament comes to a close. He was dealing with a redeemed people. They had come out of the bondage of Babylon. They had been returned to the land of their fore-fathers. The temple had been rebuilt. Life was comfortable for them, and, rather than being fully after God for all that He had done for them, they were a people of apathy. They were taking God for granted. They were even questioning whether God really cared for them and loved them.
	Malachi was faced with the call of God to highlight that apathetic attitude and to serve notice to God’s own people, that God would continue His plan and purpose with but a remnant of those people who would follow God with all their heart and with all their soul. God was telling them of the coming of Christ, but their apathy blinded them to the spiritual reality that Christ would usher in. Only those few, whose hearts were fully after God would see the fulfilled Glory of God in Christ, the rest were just along for the ride.
	This highlights an extreme danger inherent in spiritual apathy. It is not a danger in terms of losing our salvation. Once in Christ, always in Christ, and thank the Lord that He so loves us to keep us eternally secure in Himself. But there is so much more than just salvation to be opened unto and into us in Christ, and it is the true spiritual life of Christ that we can miss if we are not desirous after Him, if we are but satisfied with the way things are, and never seek after God to increase the measure of Christ in our lives. This is the true joy of being in Christ that we can so easily miss because we are not whole-heartedly after Him. 
	Yes, it is true that to know Christ in a living relationship does involve sacrifice, it involves a continual death of self, but it results in the Glory of God in Christ which is unparalleled by any earthly thing that we might fear to lose. Phil. 3:8 Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ. Are we truly after this, or are we, like the people of Malachi’s generation, settling for what is required, and meeting that requirement with a minimum of effort?
	We began this consideration with the initial recognition that spiritual apathy, as evidenced in Malachi 1:2 has its beginnings in questioning whether God really loves us. It is a matter of letting self dictate the way in which we view what God has done for us. There is a basic human capacity to forget all that has preceded, and to basically ask ”What has God done for me lately?” The viewpoint obviously stresses  the “me” within the realm of what God has done. The focus is “I” rather than upon God. 
	This is one of the surest manners to arrest spiritual development and desire. When we begin to center our attention on my part of what is going on, whether that attention is in a positive vein, or a negative vein, it still puts us in the picture and pushes God to the side-line. What is meant by this? It is a matter of the focal point of our desires. When we are the focal point, our spiritual growth can no longer develop in a fruitful manner. Our lives become as a thicket which will require the pruning shears of the Holy Spirit to cut and to shape us once more into that which God desires.
	Yes, we might be positively focused on how much we are doing for the Lord. We might be doing everything in our power to further the spreading of the Gospel, and the building of the church, but where is the attention being centered? So often that word “I” comes into play when we listen to ourselves talk about what we are involved in. And, that “I” needs to be stricken, to be put to death that He may reign in our lives. Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loveth me and gave himself for me.
	We are not talking about a grammatical surgery of vocabulary, we are dealing with a strategic cutting away of self that is manifested even in our positive endeavors to further the promotion of our place in the eyes of the church members. 
	As well, when we are focusing negatively on what I am not getting, or how awful my life is now, so too, we are drawing the attention to me, myself and I. Our complaints are for the purpose of letting others know that we are someone for whom they should feel sorry. Our negative comments and criticisms of others are fully for the purpose of letting others know that we are better than they, that we are elevating ourselves at the extreme expense of others. Again, the focus is upon the greatness of I and the lowliness of them.
	Ah, yes, now we cut to the crux of the matter. So often what we do, even in our best efforts, is for the attention it brings, not to God, but to us. That personal attention is deadly to our spiritual growth, because, like a weed, it chokes and mangles any growth of Christ in us. Our attention, our attitudes, our endeavors focus on our part, even in spiritual matters, and we quickly lose sight of Him for Whom we are to live, Who is our life. This is when we begin to even complain to God that He hasn’t done much for us lately. We bemoan the fact that we used to know Him very well, and that He used to do things for us, but what has He done lately. We will focus on the fact that He seems to be more interested in that person or in this person rather than in me. All the emphasis on me and not on Christ.
	This then, leads to the destructive idea that, somehow, we actually deserve the attention of God. We begin to feel that God should be doing more for us because of who we are. We begin to resent the lack of God’s manifestation in our lives as opposed to what He is doing in someone else’s, and we start to become ungrateful for what God has done to this point in our lives. We begin to take God for granted and begin to do just what is minimally required in our daily lives to show that we are Christians.
	How often do we attend services because we know we should, rather than because we want to be here. How often do we go to worship as spectators only, and not participants who are Spirit-controlled and led? How often do we perform Christian duties because we have to to keep up appearances, rather than because we want to be expressing Christ? Think of all the responsibilities of our being part of this fellowship, and we will identify, within our hearts, the fact that we are taking God for granted. As we view all the responsibilities and duties that are part of our fellowship relatedness, what attitude do we display? Christ created a sense of duty that sprang forth from the eternal Love of God. He brought into our lives the reality of Love that gives our all for one another because we are now fully incorporated into the Body of Christ.
	When we are functioning out of an attitude which sees everything in terms of how it is our duty and our responsibility, we are lacking the appreciation of the Love of God that is our Life in Christ. We should be doing what is befitting us as Christians, not because we have to, not because it is required, but because we love to do that which pleases the Father, and what pleases the Father is uplifting to the Body of Christ. Heb. 13: 20-21 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
	When our lives manifest a self-centered attitude of duty, we are the focus and it becomes a labor, what is sometimes called a labor of love, but a labor just the same. Even in that, the idea is how much it costs us to do what we know needs to be done. We focus on the sacrifice that we are making, rather than upon the One by Whose sacrifice we are brought into a oneness of service and of love. The service that is now our very life needs to be done unto God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the attitude of wanting to do only that which pleases the Father.  
	The ringing words throughout the Book of Malachi give evidence to the next aspect of spiritual apathy, the fact that the people were not even aware of the problem. Continually the questions come forth in terms of what have we done, why is this so, wherein have we failed? Over and over again God brings forth example after example of how the people were not of a heart after Him. He points to their dealings with one another, to their dealings with the priests, and especially to their dealings with Himself and in the manner in which they displayed their lack of concern in service to God.
	Yes they observed the feasts and the rituals, but their hearts were not after God, they were after themselves, and what they could get out of it. They were not after pleasing God, they were after doing the minimum that they could get away with and still fulfill the law. They were not willing to give God their best. They were bringing sacrifices with blemishesand illnesses, just to avoid the earthly loss of something they valued in deference to God’s Holiness. As a measure of satisfying the letter of the Law, they were not desirous to honor God. They were deliberately dishonoring the very character of God, by heedlessly ignoring His Being of Holiness.
	Are we, as well guilty of this in our lives, guilty of apathetic disinterest to the things of God? Are we allowing ourselves to simply satisfy requirements while losing our fervor after the fullness of Who God is and how we are to be living sacrifices unto Him? Apathy follows this progression, you know. First there is the questioning of God’s true love for us. Then we begin to question His character of Being, the value of truly giving Him our all. Then we begin to question His commands in our lives, the spiritual life that we are called to live. We begin to rationalize that it is too hard for us to bear with statements such as the fllowing. Surely God doesn’t want us to be door-mats for people to walk all over. I am who I am by nature, and I just can’t help it. It is too hard to be a Christian in our present age, there are too many things and too many distractions that get in the way. I can’t be a fervent Christian, it would cost too much, or I am too busy, or I have too much pressure at work to concentrate on the things of God right now. Sure, in those olden days it was easier to be a Christian, but today, with all the advances of technology and the need to stay ahead of my competitors, God can’t possibly expect me to be that kind of a Christian, now can He? That’s just too old-fashioned for today’s sophisticated society. 
	All of these elements lead us into that spiritual apathy which takes God for granted, which then causes us to think less of our Lord than of ourselves. Is it too old-fashioned to bring forth the Word of God at this point, to open our Bibles to The Letter to the Romans, Chapter 12, verses 1-3 where we have the Apostle Paul calling to us to consider what God has accomplished in Christ Jesus, even in our very lives, today? I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
	In this passage we have the Apostle Paul answering the queries we just raised concerning the attitude of questioning God’s call for our full desire after Christ. Please notice that there is no avenue given to any of the excuses that we can put forth, either past, current or in the future. Everything is presented in the terms of God’s mercy. It is God Who will bring forth the measure of Christ within us to meet the daily needs of our living relationship with Him. Sure, in terms of the cost of this age, everything is sacrificed for the glory of God, but in terms of what God desires for eternity, it means nothing to lose everything that this world has to offer. 
	The Apostle puts our honoring God in terms of our reasonable service. Again, we face the aspect of our attitude in our relationship to God. This is our spiritual responsibility, to serve God out of love. This type of service is rendered in some translations as an act of worship. If we are truly after seeking a better service of worship unto God, then we must set aside any of the attitudes of either our superiority above others, or our inferiority, our comparing ourselves to others in any manner. We need to seek the Lord to set aside the consideration of “me” in every sense, whether it is an elevated sense of self-worth or a lack of self-worth, and strictly look at each other and our selves in the light of Christ.
	We have been challenged to seek after the truth of mankind in Christ, to not settle for less than the fullness of Who Christ is in us. It is vital that our hearts are shaken from the apathy that things are fine for the time-being, and that a chord rings forth from our hearts unto God’s heart to not settle for anything other than His perfect desire in our lives. This is no light prayer, to be frivolously spoken because of an emotional urging surging in our beings. Rather, this has to be a deliberate and desperate call unto God to break the complacency of our souls and to shatter the status quo of our beings. If we truly desire to worship him in Spirit and in truth, if we truly are after the fullness of Christ, a tremendous pruning is needed. If we take to heart the call of God unto the full stature of manhood in Christ, we may soon find that there is very little left of what we considered to be of spiritual value. We will be so cut, and shaken, and sheared that simply a twig will remain where once there might have been a hedge, but what a fruitful twig of righteousness that will be unto God, for His orchard and for His harvest.
	Let not the weeds of ease and comfort choke away the value of Christ that is planted in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Seek after God, with all our hearts and with all our souls and with all our beings. Grab hold of the value of Christ, and let no infestations of self, manifested in spiritual apathy, destroy or stunt the growth of the spiritual life Who even now courses through us unto the fruitfulness of the Glory of God in our Lord Jesus Christ.
	  As we are instructed in Hebrews 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
	Next week, Lord willing, we will consider several of the spiritual principles which serve to set aside spiritual apathy in reverence and consideration of just how awesome is our God.