There is a phrase that ran through my head often when I was in California pastoring. It was,

“You are overfed and under lived.”

Maybe the Holy Spirit has said something similar to you before. Another way of wording it would be to say, “I know too much and do too little.” Making all of this very practical and more convicting was the fact that the Holy Spirit had recently had his finger on a verse and told me, “This is you.” Here is that verse:

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters” ( Luke 11:23).

While I had never been convicted by this passage, now I felt as if Jesus was saying to me, “If you are not gathering people with me, you are scattering them.” And while I did not see myself as a divisive person, the contrast Jesus presented me with was simply in line with those He gave others in the Gospels.

The Santa Barbara Marina in Santa Barbara, CA.

So, as the Lord would have it He confirmed this was something He expected of me. He had another young man in the area who asked me to grab lunch. The young man was part of the young adults I was to shepherd at the church. He asked me to coffee he said, because he had been burdened recently with the need to begin evangelizing again and wanted to know if I would be interested in it as well. I told him what the Lord had laid on my heart recently, and we decided to go out together. We had some good conversations with people and learned a lot. It was at this time that I began to realize how very few people there were actively winning the lost. You go to Church and look around you at this “dead army” and wonder, “where are all the soul winners?” The fields are white, they are ready, and yet there is no one to labor.

From Sunday morning pulpits we can be made to feel like we are covering our bases by sharing the Gospel in many Sunday morning messages, and from the pews, we can also be made to feel we are covering our bases by simply inviting people to hear the pastor preach, however, individual people are not being trained to go out and win souls, but instead are being encouraged to enroll in more classes and conferences. The more knowledge they are fed, the less qualified they feel due to their realization that “there’s just so much” they still do not know. And rather than being called to live out what they know, they are told to learn more from the experts themselves– church leadership.

Regarding the lack of action in the Church, I want to show you a report I found.

The Great Commission Research Network noted in a journal that in the Fall of ’22 pastors were surveyed and asked what would be the greatest challenges that North American Churches would face in 2023 using their own congregations as reference.

Their Findings

1. The number one concern of pastors was mobilizing for evangelism.
2. The second most important concern of pastors was concern for evangelism.

These findings are consistent with research done by Lifeway and Pew Research prior to COVID-19.

Fact: for the last 4 years, evangelistic efforts have been a major concern for Christian pastors in North America…

The net and net of the matter: Pastors are struggling to get their flocks to live for Christ. That is–to live what they know.

Pew Research Center in 2022 said, “if current trends continue, Christianity will be in the minority in America by 2070.” That is just over one generation from now.

Why the lack of evangelism?

Its not due to a lack of knowledge of what it is, but a lack of action upon it. People know exactly what it is, but they aren’t living it. Perhaps they feel that they are for a number of reasons, which we will dive into in another post.

Paul said to the church at Philippi…”What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—PRACTICE these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Phil. 4:9

Paul shows us that there is a cause and effect relationship between living for Christ and as a result experiencing the peace and righteousness of Christ. Interestingly enough, as Paul explains, this “live what you believe in order to experience its affects” hinges on practicing what we learn, what we receive, what we hear, and what we see. Apart from living out what we are fed, we cannot have this peace, we cannot have the life Christ died for.

I believe this issue of being overfed and under-lived, is a plague in the (C)hurch today. It’s not new, in fact we have a very practical example of it in the Old Testament. This man’s congregation was complicit in the same act. Do you remember who it was? That’s right, Ezekiel.

Context: It is sometime around 586 B.C. during the Babylonian exile, and Ezekiel has been declaring God’s Words to those in exile. Here, in chapter 33:30-33, God tells Ezekiel that while he has declared God’s Words to the people, they have not obeyed those words. God says,

“As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, ‘Come, and hear what the word is that comes from the Lord.’ And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with lustful talk in their mouths they act; their heart is set on their gain. And behold, you are to them like one who sings lustful songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. When this comes—and come it will!—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.” 

Apparently, “whenever… [Israel has] time for a quick chat, Ezekiel’s name surfaces as the subject of discussion. Specifically, the members of the community encourage each other to go to his house to receive a message from Yahweh” (Block, 266). Doesn’t this remind you of how we act when we attend a great church and everyone has to hear about the leader? Israel came with the demeanor of faithful, attentive disciples of Yahweh, but they left and lived like hypocrites. “By their attendance at his [Ezekiel’s] ‘performances’ they sustain the illusion that they are a spiritual congregation, eager to hear a word from Yahweh” (Block, 267). They love the sound of Ezekiel’s voice. He must be a skilled speaker, someone who perhaps like Samuel, did not have one of His words fall to the ground. He must have been entertaining, a showman of sorts. In contrast to the other prophets in their midst, Ezekiel didn’t waver from declaring the true Word of the Lord, no matter how hard it may have been. Contributing to the allusion that they intended to head his words, they must have oohed and awed at how bold he was, how honest he was, how precise he was. And still, with perfect attendance and the allusion of listening ears, this congregation was dead. While they obsessed over Ezekiel’s message, they did not want to practice any of what he said. Secondly, the reason for their perfect attendance and desire to hear the Word was rooted in lust and greed.

This entire event reminds me of when I used to go hear a sermon, come home, and over lunch begin discussing with my family the content of the message, the more “powerful” aspects, and how wonderful a teacher the man was– oohing and awing over him/her. The lusting after the message began as soon as I took my seat in the chapel. I was engaged and listening as though my life depended on it. Many times, my aim in listening so attentively was to comprehend the entirety of the message and its deepest parts, all for the sake of saying, “I was there.” And then relaying its message to someone else while also expounding on it. The gain I garnered was praise from others for attending such a congregation, relaying its eloquent message to others (profiting and garnering praise from them on my ability to understand such a message). I gave the allusion of someone who was going to live it, but I really only repeated what I heard.

John said, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And by this we know that we are of the truth, and shall ASSURE our hearts before Him.” I Jn. 3:18-19

How will we know we are of the truth? How will we assure our hearts before the Lord? By making sure we are not loud mouths, but instead showing by our deeds what we believe and doing so truthfully. In fact, biblically we cannot know the right thing to do and not do it. This is sin (James 4:17).

Jesus was a man who didn’t just believe the right things and say the right things. No, Jesus Did the right things. Jesus expects the same from us. If we cannot, it will be true of us that we are following a different Jesus and hence do not know the true Jesus. And the consequence of not knowing him are grave as well as eternal.

Luke said, “In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach..” Acts 1:1

There it is! Jesus had a do and say ministry!

Luke wasn’t the only one who observed Jesus ministry being a say and do ministry… It was also the two men on the road to Emmaus. Luke says, “And he [Jesus] said to them [the two man walking with him], ‘What things?’ And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” Luke 24:19

Jesus’ ministry was marked by doing and teaching… The ministry of the Church is often marked by words only and only doing it if/when we feel like it.

Jesus is going to judge the world on account of what we do for Him though, not what we know (James 2:14-17). How do we know this? Matt. 25:31-46; Rom. 2:6-8; Matt. 16:27.

So, returning to the title, “Am I deceived?” How can we know if we are? James tell us,

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).

The truth is, if we know more than we are living, we are self-deceived.

The cure for this is to immediately, today, begin practicing what we already know. I often pray for opportunities with people at work and the Lord will give them to me periodically to either witness to someone about Jesus, or challenge someone else. Lauren and I have also asked the Lord that our time here on earth would be spent for him, doing things that matter and count.. and so sometimes walking down the street I will have a conviction to do something for someone, or I will have a dream.

Jesus does not need you or I to read another book, attend another conference, or go to another gathering before we are equipped to live for Him.. 99% of the equipping for any task is given in the act of obedience itself. Therefore we will never be equipped unless we live for Him. It’s time to live, discarding the spiritual allusion we have adopted like Israel in Babylon under Ezekiel’s preaching, and finally living for Jesus. We were not called to be hypocrites. We are children of God and we believe, we say, and we do the things Jesus did–patterning our lives after His alone, because it is by His life that we will be tested as silver in a furnace (Prov. 25:4; II Tim. 2:21).

Questions to Consider:

1. What is the danger of being over-fed and under lived when it comes to our relationship with Jesus? Have you seen this before in your life/elsewhere? Have you seen this in your job/business? When and what happened?
2. What are some of the practical ways we might justify not living out what we know on a daily basis?
3. Can you be a disciple of Jesus and only know the truth? Yes/no? If yes, in what way? If not, why?
4. Do you believe everyone is called to do the works laid out in Matthew 25? Do you believe everyone is called to evangelize? Why or why not?
5. What role does the Holy Spirit play in our lives when it comes to applying what we have learned in the scriptures/from Jesus?
6. What is the heart motivation for doing/living out what we know?
7. How is living out what we know different from a works-based Gospel?
8. How have the previous passages changed your thinking as it relates to knowledge and applying what you know?

Take home: What is one area in your life that the Holy Spirit is touching on is it relates to doing what you know to be true?