Old Testament: 2 Chronicles 23-25
Poetry: Psalm 8
New Testament: 1 Timothy 4
I love baseball.(If you don’t please hang in there, you’ll still see the value in this illustration) I used to play baseball all the time when I was a child. I went to my first professional baseball game with my Dad when I was just 5 years old- the Seattle Pilots were playing the Washington Senators. (Fun fact, neither of those teams exist anymore and if you do some detective work you can figure out what year this was as the Seattle Pilots only existed for 1 season). I say this because today is the 2023 baseball All-Star game.
When I first discovered baseball, the Washington Senators were the closest team to my Virginia home and my Dad brought me to several games. So I became a Senators fan. But then disaster struck and the unthinkable happened, the owner of the Senators moved the whole team away from Washington to Texas. No more Senators. What would I do with my baseball loyalty? The next closest team was the Baltimore Orioles so we began going to Orioles games and I became a big Orioles fan. This was easy to do because in the 1970’s the Orioles were the best team in baseball. They were in 4 World Series from 1969-1979 and had some of the best players in baseball. They were fun to watch and they won a lot.
Time went on. I moved away from home to attend college and got busy, got married, had children, and moved overseas for a while, I still watched baseball but didn’t have a lot of time to be a fan or follow my team closely or go to many games. During this time the Orioles sadly went from being one of the best teams to one of the worst. They became harder to get excited about. My Orioles fandom began to waiver. Then, a miracle happened. The Montreal Expos moved to Washington DC and became the Washington Nationals. After more than 30 years, DC had a baseball team again. Not long after, I moved back to Virginia to pastor a church and work as a hospital chaplain. Now there were 2 baseball teams nearby, the Nationals and the Orioles and I could watch both games on local tv. I began to follow both. The Nationals kept getting better and better, the Orioles kept getting worse. So by the late 2010’s I was pretty much a Nationals fan and looked upon the Orioles with pity. And then the Nationals had their miracle season and won the World Series in 2019. Life was truly great! And then Covid happened. Even baseball got canceled for most of 2020. After the Covid shortened year the Nationals franchise collapsed and they got rid of all their great players like Max Scherzer and Juan Soto. Meanwhile, the Orioles went through a rebuild and suddenly they were a really good team again, the tables were turned and they were fun to watch while the Nationals were the team to be pitied. As of now, I find myself watching more Orioles games than Nationals. I’m still a Nationals fan, but very half-hearted on most days.
Sorry, that’s a long set up and if you’re not a baseball fan, thank you for hanging in there with me. The point is that my baseball loyalty has gone through periods of waxing and waning, with shifting loyalties. When you have no options, you have to stay with your team through thick and thin, the good times and bad times. (I know some of you are football fans who follow the Lions or the Browns so you’ve had to stay loyal to terrible teams for 50 years… good for you). When you have options- Orioles and Nationals, the temptation is greater to pay more attention to the winner, the more successful team.
What does this have to do with today’s readings? 1 Timothy 4:1 says: “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith…”. Paul is here warning Timothy that even as followers of Jesus, there is the danger of letting go of our allegiance to Jesus Christ as our Lord. This rarely happens in an instant. Just like with my baseball fandom, where I slowly, gradually shifted my loyalty from the Orioles to the Nationals, it didn’t happen instantly. It was a process that I didn’t really even notice happening, but little by little I found myself caring less about my fan commitment to one team and more to another. Now, in the big picture, baseball doesn’t matter and it makes little difference to my life if I’m an Orioles fan or a Nationals fan (but if I ever cheer for the Yankees, put me in a home because I’ve lost my mind.)
But the danger of losing our loyalty to God our Father and Jesus Christ our savior and the Kingdom of God as being first in our hearts has eternal consequences. I’ve been around long enough to see Paul’s warnings to Timothy actually happen to people I know. I’ve seen students who attended FUEL faithfully, know their Bible, do Bible quizzing, and excel at their knowledge of the scriptures abandon their faith. I’ve even known people who served as leaders of the church, even a few pastors who went from preaching and teaching God’s word every week to walking away from their faith in Jesus Christ.
Sadly, I’ve experienced it even in my own family, people who I love the most, reject the faith of God’s Word. For most, this didn’t happen overnight. A thousand little decisions over time happened until one day they realized that they no longer loved or followed or even believed in God or God’s word or Jesus’ way. Maybe it was making moral compromises and they could no longer sustain the cognitive dissonance of saying one thing but doing another. Maybe it was adopting a worldly ideology of the meaning of persons or identity and finding it incompatible with God’s word and then choosing to reject God’s word instead of their worldly ideology. Maybe it was because they grew bored with God and became captivated by the shining idols of the world.
The Fastest growing religious segment in the United States over the past 20 years is the “Nones”. People who say they have no religious loyalty or affiliation. This is heartbreaking.
Paul warned that people would abandon the faith in large numbers. We see it happening today. I don’t want it to happen to you or any of the people I care about.
Here are a few suggestions I would offer to help you avoid joining the ranks of those who are abandoning the faith.
Remember, no one is immune: “So those who think they are standing need to watch out or else they may fall.” -1 Corinthians 10:12. Never assume that “it could never happen to me.” It can happen to anyone.
“Fix your eyes on Jesus”. Hebrews 12:2. Jesus started his ministry with the words “Follow Me”. Later he said, “I am the way”. If you want to get where you want to go, you need to keep your eyes steady on the one who knows the way and how to get there, Jesus.
“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11. Pay attention to the examples of how it happened in Israel. Remember all these Old Testament passages we are reading, including this week’s stories in 2 Chronicles of how even good people like King Jehoshaphat can make compromises that lead them and their people away from God. Read the Bible and learn from their examples of what NOT to do to stay faithful.
Don’t give up on going to Church. “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:23-25. The church is not perfect, I get it. Christians aren’t perfect, I get it. Sermons can be boring at times, I get it. Other options for how we spend our time on the weekends can be very attractive, I get it. But don’t give up on Church. Don’t give up meeting with other believers. We need others to help us stay faithful to God and not abandon our faith.
Don’t adjust your faith and beliefs to accommodate the values of the world. “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” James 4:4. As the world is moving further away from a Biblical worldview and God honoring teachings we cannot follow the world, because the world will move us away from loyalty and faithfulness to God.
Who will get my ultimate loyalty, the Nationals or the Orioles? Who cares? In the scope of eternity it doesn’t matter. Who will get YOUR ultimate loyalty, Jesus Christ or The World? That matters more that ANYTHING. Don’t abandon your faith.
-Jeff Fletcher
Reflection Questions
- Why do you think, especially among people under 30, so many are abandoning their faith?
- What is the biggest temptation/danger area in your life that could lead you toward abandoning your faith?
- What positive steps will you begin to take TODAY to make sure that you continue to follow Jesus faithfully?
Seek Grow Love 