I can't help but think that Prov. 6:10 is a rather apt depiction of far too many disciples of Christ today: "A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep." In verse 9 the question is posed to these spiritual sluggards: "When will you rise from your sleep?!" The apostle Paul, adapting a quote he took from the prophet Isaiah, pleaded, "Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead" [Eph. 5:14]. He also informed the Roman brethren, "it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep" [Rom. 13:11]. We have become a people "at ease in Zion" [Amos 6:1], tucked away in our cozy little comfort zones. Too many have become little more than believers within a box, shielded from those about them, shut off from all who might dare to challenge their cherished convictions, personal preferences, and party perceptions and practices. It is a blissful ignorance; a calm repose. Their box is a coffin, however, and the hush that descends about them is the silence of a tomb. There is the smell of death, not the sweet savor of a life of sacrificial service offered up unto the Lord among those about us who are perishing in the darkness.

Voltaire [1694-1778] nailed it when he spoke of Brutus sleeping while Rome was in chains. Too many who profess to be disciples of Jesus today are similarly indisposed. There are precious souls all about them in chains -- in bondage to the harsh masters of legalism and sin. Yet these "walled-in weekend warriors" slumber peacefully within their comfortable religious boxes while others perish in shackles. They are seemingly oblivious to the oppression that exists about them. A soldier asleep on watch, or snoozing in a foxhole, is of little use to our Commander-in-Chief; indeed, such are a liability. So is an entombed disciple -- one encased within his own peaceful mausoleum while the world suffers and dies on his doorstep. President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) rightly observed, "If men and women are in chains anywhere in the world, then freedom is endangered everywhere." Brethren, we must abandon our religious boxes. We were not called by Christ to slumber in cozy chambers; we were called to put on armor, take up a sword, and engage the forces of darkness on the front lines of the battle for men's souls.

I fear that the church has grown comfortable. We have found that "zone of comfort" which, in reality, equates to a zone of complacency. We no longer feel a sense of urgency to accomplish our mission. Why are we here? What is our purpose? What have we been called to? And, what can you and I do, individually as well as collectively, to help achieve these godly goals? These are questions that have not only gone unanswered, but largely unconsidered. Why? Because we have been much too busy tip-toeing around sleeping saints to sound the trumpet summoning God's people to action. "Let's not disturb them!!" Au Contraire!! Let's blast them out of their padded pews and into the streets. Let's shake their box until they spill forth from it, so that they might start being the church, instead of going through life just going to and doing church, neither of which are biblical concepts. It is time for us to take the Light into the darkness, rather than merely cursing it from behind our sectarian walls of exclusion. Salt cannot flavor and preserve while in a crystal shaker, and yeast does not do its work unless mixed in with the dough. Sealed in a protective wrapper, it is useless. So too with the genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.

I heard an old preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ once declare within a sermon that if he were given a single wish that would be immediately fulfilled by the Lord God, then he would wish for every church building on earth to burn to the ground overnight, thus forcing the people of God to spill forth into their communities. It was his feeling, and I believe he has a point, that we have become a people who tend to "practice Christianity" within a building; behind closed doors. Our Light has been placed under that proverbial basket, thus hiding it from those who need it most. I'll be honest with you, brethren, I'm personally convicted that we would be far more effective within our communities if we were all meeting in homes and inviting in our neighbors, instead of meeting in a single church building, waiting for the lost to come to us. If the legalistic patternists want to "restore the pattern," why don't they start here, instead of worrying about the preciseness of some "act of worship" within some "worship service" inside some "church building" -- none of which are even mentioned in Scripture, must less regulated. Focusing on these, rather than our true mission in this misguided world, has transformed us into feuding factionists and squabbling sectarians, rather than everyday evangelists of the grace of God to a perishing world. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves!

A gifted brother in Christ, Max Lucado, once did an article on what happens when fishermen do not fish. A group had gone to a lake for a week of fishing, but the rains were really heavy, so they ended up packed together inside a cabin. It wasn't long before they were at one another's throats. When fishermen do not fish, they fight. It was an amusing story; an attention grabber ... but it shares a valid insight into human nature. If we, as disciples of Christ, as fishers of men, are failing to fulfill our calling, then our sights will turn from the lost and turn upon one another. Rather than harvesting souls, we are harassing saints. Rather than picking the grain from the stalks in the field, we're nitpicking our siblings in the Family of God. Brethren, we have simply been "cooped up" too long. It is time for us to get "out and about," once again becoming focused upon and engaged in the "business of our Father."

Let me develop this thought in a somewhat different, but certainly no less critical, direction. I am convinced that too many within Christendom, and especially within various faith-heritages (and sub-sects thereof), have theological perspectives and traditional practices so "neatly packaged" (dare I say "pre-packaged"?) that they have become virtually sealed air-tight. These personal and party preferences (now elevated to precepts) are paraded as The Pattern for fellowship and salvation, and they are so tightly wrapped and boxed that they are impervious to review, much less to reform. Open the box and expose the contents?!! Never. Ever. This is exactly why the more legalistic and patternistic a group is, the less willing they are to engage in open and responsible dialogue with those who differ with them. That is why they will hide under their desks rather than answer questions responsibly. That is why their Internet "discussion" groups are so restrictive and regulated, and why virtually no one can get in. Their theology is "neatly boxed," arranged just as they like it, and they don't want it "messed with" by those godless "outsiders."

Such a "boxed" theology is an almost certain recipe for religious calcification. Their thinking becomes rigid, their practices become rigid, and their outreach to the world about them becomes increasingly ineffective, for in our enlightened day and age people have no desire to exchange freedom of thought for mind-control, and freedom of worshipful expression for a humanly deduced and devised regulation of every particular of some elusive pattern, a pattern that varies greatly with each and every party, sect, faction and schism in Christendom. If a congregation is not growing, both spiritually and numerically, if there is tension among the members, I can almost guarantee you that there are "legalistic patternism" issues at work within that group of religionists. I can also guarantee you that in time it will destroy that congregation. Such little groups are closing their doors for the last time in ever increasing numbers, and many predict that by the end of this century such hardened legalistic congregations of patternists will be all but nonexistent. If they won't wake up, abandon their boxes, and embrace the freedom in Christ Jesus to effect the necessary changes to their teachings and practices, they will perish ... and deservedly so!