The Bryce Crawford Podcast - Lukewarm And Lovin It (EP 10)

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In this episode, Bryce talks about lukewarm Christianity and how to break free from it.

All right, what's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryce, and today I'm so excited for this episode. I've been so hype when we came up with the idea, and I was inspired by Francis Chan's sermon, lukewarm and loving it. That's the title of this episode, How to Stop Living on the Fence. I'm so excited because I lived as a lukewarm Christian for so long, and I want to offend your brain today to get to your heart.

And I want God to use this podcast episode, to do some fillet on your heart and just reflect. You know, God knows our heart better than any man. Like, we know ourselves really well, but God knows our heart better than we know our own heart. So I pray that this episode is going to be a thing where you go, God, really search my heart, like show me things that I need to root out because this episode I'm so excited for.

And I just hate lukewarm Christianity because it's become so normalized. And we need to talk about it. And we're just going to talk about it how I just don't think lukewarm Christianity is even a real thing. that's just hot take just being real just being real now the definition of lukewarm means to be neither cold nor hot so it's kind of like that mediocre state i remember when i was living with my grandma for a little bit or when i go over there for sleepovers she'd make sure to make that bath water nice and lukewarm wasn't too hot wasn't too cold it was like just right

it was just right and we need we need to keep that in mind because a lot of people's faith is lukewarm A lot of people are living lukewarm. And where I grew up in the South, about 98% of people were lukewarm. It was very rare for me to meet someone who was on fire for Jesus. And if they were on fire for Jesus, they were weird, you know, which is really dangerous that lukewarm Christianity is normalized. Now, there's going to be a few passages we highlight, but mainly this passage in Revelation 3,

about to blow y'all out of y'all's seats. Y'all better buckle up. I hope y'all are sitting somewhere where y'all can, like, just, chill out because that's about to get buck wild on this podcast episode. We got Revelation 3 5, sorry, Revelation 3 15 through 16 says, I know your works. You're neither cold nor hot. With that, you were either cold nor hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I'll spit you out of my mouth.

God vomits lukewarmness out of his mouth. The reason that people are lukewarm is because they're not fine. 100% of their satisfaction in Jesus. So they're going to be dipping a little bit of their toe in the water. Like, oh, I just want benefits of the kingdom without the king. Oh, I just want the gifts instead of the giver himself. And so with lukewarmness, we're sitting on this gray area of the fence. Calling lukewarm Christianity, lukewarm, or having this section of lukewarm Christianity

means that culture has created a gray area that doesn't exist. We either love God or we don't. We just got to get over that. you either love God or you don't. There's this gray area that really doesn't exist. And I love Mark 12 when Jesus says the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength.

Jesus doesn't go, yeah, just give me 70% of your heart and the other 30% you can give to the world. He doesn't say that. He says, I want all of you. You got to love me with all of you. And that whole passage is the Pharisees trying to test him, being like, what's the greatest commandment? You had to follow 633.

laws to be righteous and Jesus sums up all of righteousness in that passage to love the Lord your God with all of your heart all of your soul all of your mind with all your strength that's the greatest commandment and so right off the bat if you're withholding any percentage of yourself from Jesus then you're disobeying the one commandment Jesus says is the most important to follow and so we have to reflect on our heart and saying God what am I not given to you what is stopping me from giving all of me to you and we have to be very cautious and reflect on our life There's this analogy of a man. He says he had a dream. And in his dream, he was in an open grass field and the grass field was split by a fence. And on one side of the fence was Satan. And on the other side of the fence was God. And Satan looks at him. He says, which one do you want? You want God or you want me? He's like, if you come over here, I'll give you all you want. I'll give you everything you want. But if you go with God, you don't get everything I'm offering me. And so this guy's contemplating. He's like, oh, man, Jesus, like you're there. You're so good. But, man Satan there's some things that I really enjoyed so he laughs at both of them and he sits on the fence

he says I don't have to choose either of you I can I can be on both sides of you at the same time and as he's laughing and scoffing at Satan and God it goes black and out of the darkness comes Satan and the man goes no no no no no no Satan like I didn't choose you I sat on the fence so I got a little bit of Jesus and I got a little bit of you and Satan grabs him by the arm and grips him really hard and says the fence belong to me. Really powerful. Think about that. There's no real gray area at the end of the day. When judgment day comes, Jesus says, he'll spit us out of his mouth. So a question I get asked a lot, and we've been asked a lot, is if I'm lukewarm, does it mean I'm going to hell? Like, if God vomits me out of his mouth, does it mean I can still be saved? Really? Did those words look like the words in the description of a believer? Look at verse 17 after that. For you say, I'm rich,

I have prospered and I need nothing, not realizing that you're wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. That's how he describes the lukewarm. So you were like, I was once blind, but now I'm blind? That's not how it works. You can't be lukewarm for Jesus. You're all in like I love God with all my heart or you don't love him. And there's even a Bible verse in 1st or 2nd John where it talks about if anyone remotely lives in any bit of darkness, then he can't fellowship with the light. So you mean to tell me, Bryce, that I can't have a

little bit of the world and a little bit of Jesus? It doesn't really work like that. Because when you're living lukewarm and on the fence, you don't get the fullness of Jesus. You don't. And you're like, oh man, Jesus just isn't doing it for me. But when you're living lukewarm, you don't know what it feels like to actually have Jesus in your life. Because you're not getting the fullness of him. So we have to be willing to get the fullness of him. And the crazy thing about being, lukewarm is that if you get it, you won't be lukewarm. If you understand the gospel, you won't be lukewarm. And this isn't like a thing where you have to work for salvation. You have to work for God's love. That's not what this is. But if you just get it, you won't be lukewarm. So you actually

don't have to work to be lukewarm. You just have to surrender. But you have to be willing to surrender. Because a lot of you guys want to grip onto some stuff. You're like, oh, I'll surrender a little bit of this and that. But I don't want to get that. And I feel like a lot of you listening to this, if I asked you if you were lukewarm or not, you would admit that you were lukewarm. And I'm not trying to judge you, but like, are you on fire for God right now? Are you lukewarm?

And what concerns me more than the fact that you would say that you're lukewarm is that you would listen to this video or listen to this podcast and you would cut it off and you would go about your day and not do anything about it. And my greatest concern on top of that is that you would say, I'm lukewarm. I know that I'm lukewarm, but that you want to be lukewarm. because you've planned your life around being lukewarm.

You don't want anything else but to be lukewarm. You've planned your whole life out of it. You say, I want a little bit of God because it's good for my kids. It's good for my family. A little bit of God is good for the occasional bad day, but I don't have enough money. I need a bigger house. I need a little bit of more of this.

And we talked about this in the very first episode. Mark 4. The seed planted amongst the thorns was choked out by the thorns. And that's faith that is planted in it sprouts, but the deceitfulness of the world and the riches of the world. choke it out. And the distractions of the world will choke out your faith and cause you to be lukewarm. What are you going to do about it? This lukewarm fate is dangerous. You can't have fellowship with both God and the world. A house divided by itself can't stand. So which one are you

going to live for? And we know that if the foundation of our life is the rock whom we call Jesus, then we will experience the fullness of him. And it's kind of hard. I don't want you to feel shame when I say this because it can be hard when you've put your trust in so many things and they've all let you down. And so Jesus is your last resort. And you're like, God, I don't even know if I can put all my trust in you. Everything's let me down. But the reality of the matter is, even though all those things have let you down, it's the only thing you know.

So you keep going back to it. So hypothetically, you don't even know what Jesus has to offer for you. So I'm going to say step out in faith, take that risk because it's in God's character to show up in your life. and he can't go outside of his character and fail you. God's not going to fail you. It's impossible in his character to fail you. And so a lot of this lukewarm state is both people that want to be lukewarm, that want the benefits of the world and a little bit of the benefits of the kingdom.

But there's also going to be this lukewarm state of like, I don't know if Jesus is who he says he is. So I just kind of want to test him out to make sure he is who he says he is. But you can't experience the fullness of Jesus unless you give your all to him. You know, like I remember when I was younger, when we would go to the pool to figure out if the pool was cold or not, I would dip my toe in there. And I got so tired of dipping my toe in there because it would scare me. Sometimes it would scare me when I dipped in and felt how cold it was. I wouldn't want to jump in the pool.

I'd be too scared to go in. So then finally one day I just put this switch on my mind that I was going to get over and I was just going to do a cannonball every time first thing going in the pool, not even feeling how cold it was. And at first when you jump in, you get in there, it kind of shocks you, you know? You jump in and the degree of the water, it shocks you for a second. But after that quick moment of shock, I was there and I was ready and I was eager to be in the pool. And I loved playing in the pool. And so when you jump all in with Jesus, there might be a little bit of a culture shock because it's shifting your mind. It's changing the way that seemed right to you.

So yeah, there is going to be a little bit of that shock. But once you dive right in, you don't want to leave the pool. And I remember getting in there, my mom's screaming at me, get out of the pool. It's time to go home and I didn't want to get out of the pool. Once you dive all in, once you get all of Jesus and you experience the fullness of him, and you realize that there's new mercies and new grace every day for you. You're not going to want to leave. So I actually want to pray for two things for you when we close out this episode.

Number one, I want to pray for conviction. That if you're feeling conviction right now, I pray that God will convict you if you're living in a lukewarm state and that you'll actually act on it. Like I said earlier, my biggest concern is that you listen to this podcast, you recognize your lukewarm, you want to be lukewarm, but you cut it off and you don't do anything about it. But number two, I want to pray that God lays it on your heart to send this to someone who's living in a lukewarm state. Because if you really love the people around you, you'll call them higher. No matter what that takes, because love stands in the way of evil.

So Jesus, I thank you for this podcast episode. I thank you for this burden that you laid on my heart. God, I just pray for conviction to set in. for anyone watching or listening to this right now. Jesus, will you give people the conviction to get out of their lukewarm state? God, you say, I'd rather you be hot or cold. I don't want you to be lukewarm. Your words says, I'd rather you be hot or cold.

So, God, will you make us hot? Will you make people listening to this hot and on fire for you? God, we love you. And God, will you just lay people on the listener's hearts to send this episode to in Jesus' name? Amen. Guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. This episode really means a lot to me. because I lived in so much lukewarm Christianity for so long,

and I thought it was the way. But every day I would go home and I thought I was saved and I really wasn't all in. And I would be miserable. And you know, I want to encourage you guys with a testimony. After I went all in for Jesus, I got made fun of a lot after I went all in. And after I graduated high school,

a lot of people that made fun of me actually called me to this day. And I actually got a call right after I moved to L.A. Listen, when I moved to L.A., I was 100% all in for Jesus, but I was broke. I didn't have a lot of money. I didn't know where I was living. I was living in a five-bedroom house with eight people. I was sharing bedrooms.

I was doing this. I was splitting meals. And I remember someone that used to make fun of me called me, crying to me on the phone. And they said, Bryce, I've got a 4.0 GPA. I'm in my dream school. I can hook up with anyone I want, but I'm miserable. and they would go, Bryce, you're broke, you're a missionary,

you live in L.A., you live in the most expensive area and everywhere, but somehow you're more joyful and more happier than I am. What's the secret? At the end of the day, if you don't want to be honest in public, be honest with yourself right now watching or listening to this. If you're in a lukewarm state, you know that you're still suffering and you're still miserable. And I promise you from the truth of the Word of God

that God can fill this hole that you're experiencing right now. Guys, if you enjoyed this podcast episode, or you enjoy the other ones. Please subscribe to us on YouTube. Follow us on Spotify and Apple. Guys, we're super excited to keep releasing these episodes. Hopefully some guests on soon. Love you guys.

We'll see you guys next time.