Boredom

I invite you to turn this evening to Ephesians 5. Ephesians in the fifth chapter, please.

So over the recent months we have looked at 11 different subjects in what we give an overarching title, “Bible Answers for Inner Battles.” We have addressed things like anxiety, depression, self-pity, bitterness, anger, and we come this evening to the last subject. I had three others, but when I assessed them, I thought, you know, I’m really going to be—there’s too much overlap with looking at these other subjects. And you might have disputed that. You might have said, “No, that deserves its own space.” But I figured 12 is enough.

So this will be the twelfth and final message in this topical series, and I trust that it will be of help. I appreciate your feedback—it’s been encouraging—and I trust that the Lord will continue to use the messages, that you will revisit them on occasion as well, and that it might be instructive to you as you go through seasons of, well, whatever the particular issue might be. If you find yourself with inner turmoil, some kind of inner battle, stress, issue, sin, you may find within that series that which will help you. It’s a way of counseling your own soul, helping yourself.

So we’re in Ephesians 5. We’re going to look here at a couple of verses, but let us read from verse 1. Ephesians 5 verse 1:

“Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light. Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

We’ll end the reading there at verse 16.

And what you have heard is the infallible Word of the living God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let’s pray.

Lord, we ask for help again around Thy Word and in the subject that is before us for this evening. Acknowledge how much we need Thy help. We ask that Thou wilt give grace to us all to obtain a certain mastery over our inner being, that every thought would become captive to Christ. Deliver us, O God, from allowing areas of our life to remain untouched by Thy Word. Deliver us from excusing areas. Deliver us from making allowance. Deliver us from a kind of thoughtless and unbelieving approach to the areas of our life that still need to be governed by Thy authority.

So we pray that Thou wilt bless us here tonight in the subject that we consider, give help, help us to hear what Thou art saying and to respond, to assess our own souls aright, and may it please Thee to give freedom in the delivery and carry the word to every waiting soul. So forgive us and empower us and come by the Spirit to minister, revive us in Thy presence, we pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

I wish to address you tonight on the subject of boredom. Boredom. And even as I say that, I have the thought that you’re thinking to yourself, “Boredom? What kind of a subject is that to address?” In fact, I went on to sermonaudio.com and I put in the word “boredom” and there was one sermon out of the two million odd—whatever sermons are on that site—titled “boredom.”

First, then, boredom may seem an unusual subject to close out this series. And yet, I think you’ll find that it touches on more than you may realize.

Now, psychologists name varieties of boredom. They talk about a certain kind of indifferent boredom—it’s a low-key apathy. They talk about a calibrating boredom, where the mind is wandering and uneasy, not finding rest. There’s a searching boredom that is more of an expression of restlessness and a desperation to escape perhaps certain circumstances or context. There is a reactant boredom as well, where one is irritated or feeling trapped and responding in a certain way because of that. And then there is perhaps the most heavy form of boredom, that apathetic, where it’s bleak, marked by low energy, where the person really almost is at the point of despair.

So they distinguish these various expressions of boredom as well as other aspects with regard to, for example, the situational boredom. That’s when you’re sitting in a meeting asking yourself, “What is the point of this meeting?” And you find yourself being overcome with boredom. “This could have been an email” or whatever the case might be. You have also other extreme forms of existential listlessness, where one is just overwhelmed with a sense of “nothing seems to matter.” So that’s an extreme expression of boredom, where you, again, as I have said earlier, you’re almost coming to the point of despair. There is the momentary boredom, and then there’s the habitual boredom, where people always—people seem to continually be bored and saying that they are bored.

So as you look at it in that way, of course, there’s a lot of things that are true about how they consider it and even how they may categorize it. But the Lord’s Word addresses how the Christian is to live. And while there may not be explicit expressions of boredom itself, I think that in itself is an insight in which, though we don’t have it come to like in a clear, explicit expression of boredom, that you realize God’s Word addresses every problem of the human heart, and so that most boredom can be seen by an individual not thinking rightly and therefore not acting rightly.

The text that I’m using kind of as a springboard for this subject is found in Ephesians 5 verse 15 and 16: “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

There’s an expanse there that covers the whole Christian walk—walking circumspectly. That circumspect walk is contrasted with the walk of the fool. To walk circumspectly is to walk as a wise man. And if you’re to do that, you’re going to redeem the time, recognizing the days are evil.

The language of walk we considered this morning. It encompasses the whole Christian existence. The Christian life is a walk, and so our whole Christian life is to be lived out in a way that can be described as being circumspect. This is careful. This is exacting. This is precision. This is intentional—another word that we used this morning. It’s the opposite of drifting. It’s the opposite of just existing. It’s the opposite of just moving along from day to day. An intentional, purposeful living of the Christian life.

What are we to do in this circumspect walk? It is to redeem the time, verse 16. Buy the time. Endeavor to make use of the time. What does he mean by that, redeeming the time? It’s the recognition that every day presents opportunities—opportunities to serve, opportunities to obey, opportunities to worship. We are to live in that way instead of being overcome by the evil that pervades and being influenced by that evil and living a fruitless, pointless existence.

So we want to think about this subject, boredom. As I say, it’s probably not what you would first think about. Some of the others—things I’ve had people ask me about, “Would you address?”—depression, things of that nature are at the forefront of your mind as far as what we may term an inner battle. But I want to close out with this more unusual experience that I think still may be relevant for some.

So let’s think first of its character. What does boredom look like? How do we discern it? How do we see expressions of it? Because at times when one may say, “I am bored”—right, and probably, although I don’t know, I was thinking about this. It used to be a thing that was said, right, by kids, you know, they’re bored. Now it seems like maybe the only time that’s ever said by kids is in the car, and that’s if devices haven’t been thrown at them, and perhaps that’s why devices are thrown at children in the car, to stop that. But at home, it seems that boredom almost among children has gone. Whereas it was a common thing for a parent to hear six weeks into summer holidays, “I’m bored. I’m trying to figure out things to do.”

But it expresses itself in other ways, I think. First of all, you might think of discontent and murmuring. Again, we might not think of discontentment or murmuring as a form of boredom, but it can be, often is. We’re seeking something better, so we’re discontent with our current circumstances, we’re seeking something better, and we murmur. And though we may not say, “I am bored,” effectively that is what’s going on, because there isn’t a contentment or an embrace and gratitude of the present circumstances, so you’re longing after something else, and you’re desperate to escape what it is you’re currently experiencing.

Idleness and time-wasting—this also is a form of boredom as well, where people just idly exist, passing the days without any sense of intentionality. Sometimes it may be expressed—the idleness may be expressed as, “I am bored,” but not always. If you look at someone who is in—I used this a number of weeks ago, it was a term I was not familiar with until relatively recently where young people talk about “doom scrolling.” Doom scrolling—and so if you’re wondering what doom scrolling is, if you’ve ever seen someone and their thumb is just going like this constantly and you see them sitting there in a doctor’s appointment or something, just ’cause, well people do that. They sit in bed and they just scroll one thing to the next. Reel after reel after reel after reel, there’s no purpose. They’re not searching for anything. They’re just living in this kind of lull, waiting for the next thing that will excite them, or entertain them, or make them laugh, or make them cry, or whatever it is they’re looking for.

And you look at a person in that—they’re really in a state of boredom, but they aren’t able to see it for what it is. In some false and mechanical way, preventing themselves from understanding what it is that’s really going on. And so they will find themselves binging. The person who’s the channel switcher and flicker—one of my best friends growing up, and he was a channel switcher. He always had to have the controls. He always wanted the control, and then he would sit, and you’d just be getting into whatever it was, you know, three or four minutes in, and then he’d switch. He was like, “Just pick something. Like, just settle on something.” He was constantly switching channels. Of course, that was a time when you only had about four channels to choose from, so you’re just switching back and forth among the four channels, but we have this thing expressed as well, sort of idleness. A person doesn’t really know what they’re meant to be doing with their time.

There’s a worldly vanity and a meaninglessness as well, more of an existential boredom where there’s this—we talked about it—this extreme form of apathy that comes over the soul, a bleakness that comes over the mind that may result in a sense of “why bother?”

It’s some of the expressions of Ecclesiastes. “It’s all vanity, it’s empty. What’s the point in any of it?”

There are forms of melancholy and discouragement that I think boredom underpins as well. There’s a sense of affliction, a heaviness. And so the person feels, again, you think of the Psalmist where he’s a, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me?” And there’s something going on in the soul. He’s wrestling with what he’s going through there. And again, it can feel like in the midst of a certain form of a boredom or disappointment with circumstances that is not really living life and is wasting time.

And then there’s this outright—and this is perhaps the one that you want to really be thinking about—is just a spiritual sloth and sluggardliness, what I’ve titled. Spiritual sloth and sluggardliness. And this is real sin. This is when people are bored even with the things that ought to excite them most. They’re bored with prayer. They’re bored with the means of grace. They’re bored with the Word of God. They don’t go to prayer meetings because they’re boring. They don’t read the Bible because it’s boring. They don’t seek God because it’s boring. And that is perhaps the most wicked expression of boredom, at least as I have sought to assess it over recent days.

We are not to look at things that God values and not value them. If our Lord Jesus loved prayer, we should love prayer. If He loved the Word, then we should love the Word. If He loved being among His people, which He does and did, then there near the end of Psalm 22 where He, after His death, comes to that point of His resurrection and He wants to be in the midst of the congregation praising the living God. He wants to be in the midst of His people. And so if these things excite Him, they ought to excite us too, and therefore if they don’t, there is a problem.

What are the causes? This is some of the characteristics of—what are the causes? Why do we experience boredom?

Well, firstly because of human sin, human sin. The sin of our nature, fallenness of our condition means that boredom is a real thing. And we think of it in a number of ways. Again, idleness, just the idleness of man. When he is given a work to do and he has a calling from God, and yet his hands are found by his side not doing what God has called him to do. This is not—this is not pleasing to God.

Because of our sin then, we find ourselves falling into this condition of boredom, not taking up the calling that God has upon our life. You think of how the apostle warned those in the Thessalonian church. He warned them of a number of things that pertain to idleness. Some of them weren’t working, depending on the community to make ends meet for them, and they were rebuked because they were told by Paul, “This we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” If you see a man who has the physical ability and he’s not giving himself to what he ought to be giving himself to, to provide for himself and his family, let him starve, I suppose—let him starve. It’s extreme. And yet it shows you. He also talked about those who were tattlers and warned about those who went around from house to house carrying stories and so on and again. The lack of finding something fruitful to do opened up more sin, and of course it’s all because of the fallen nature.

Not just idleness, but what we might term indiscipline. Laboring, recognizing the value of labor, giving ourselves to it, giving ourselves to toil, appreciating the value of toil. The things that cause us to sweat, the things that are difficult, God often values. Is it hard to pray? Is it hard to pray? I would say it is. It’s hard to pray, to really, consistently, regularly meet with God. It is work, and yet God values that work. Yet because of our fallen condition, we don’t value the things that require the kind of discipline necessary to follow through. If God calls us to meditate in His law day and night, yes. Does that require work? Yes. So do we have, because of our human nature, a drifting away from that, the thing that requires discipline and effort? Yes. We have to overcome that.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:13, “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end.” There has to be a girding up. That’s the kind of exhortation that recognizes the tendency to not doing what we’re called to do.

Of course, because of human nature, then sloth is a real thing. We want to be coddled, we want comfort. Lie a little longer in bed and just pivot there. Not doing anything. Again, this is—we have to fight, we have to fight human nature. Paul says in Romans 13:14, “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” Yes, the sluggard gives to his lusts. He gives himself to that. He allows himself to be soft and indulgent, to delay what’s important, to avoid what matters.

Because of our nature also, we are discontent. We have thankless hearts. We are like Israel murmuring against God, loathing this light bread, Numbers 21 verse 5. God making provision, a provision that in type showed them what they needed in the Redeemer and yet they loathed it. Instead of receiving daily mercies with gratitude and with a song in our souls, we despise them because now they’re dull to us. Oh, you think that Christ can’t become dull to you and you become discontent with Him, think again. That’s the imagery of the children of Israel in the wilderness. Their loathing of the bread typified man’s ability because of his fallen condition to loathe the very bread of God. We can loathe Christ Himself, not appreciating who He is and what He has done.

You think of a church in which that congregation has the blessing of the Word given forth, of all the aspects of the means of grace. People come together and they sing, they pray, the Scripture’s read, the Scripture’s preached, and it’s the congregation faithfully doing that. And you all—every church where they just give themselves to the ordinary means of grace, they will find that there are these voices that start to arise and say, “Why not try this? Why not do that? Why not change the other?” What are they doing? In many cases, not all, but many cases, it’s the same voice of the children of Israel remembering the leeks and the garlic and the onions and wanting to bring that which was tasty from the world, because they loathe the bread. It’s not enough. Christ revealed in His Word is not enough. They come to the house of God not expectant. They come to the house of God without a prayer to meet with Christ. They’re looking for something to tantalize the soul. This is human nature—discontentment.

Unbelief undergirds that as well. Unbelief. Sometimes boredom is not about circumstances. It’s about our souls framed before God. We don’t believe. We’re not living in a vital sense of faith. That’s what happened to the Laodiceans. Unbelief. They thought—they thought, with all of their outward prosperity, they had everything they needed. And they had come to a point where, because they had all the outward things, they looked around and thought, “We have need of nothing. We have need of nothing.” And He didn’t recognize that Jesus Christ was standing outside the door, so to speak. He was outside the church, looking for admittance, seeking attention. “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.” Why is no one hearing my knock? Will someone not open the door? Unbelief had come into that church. It was enough to have all the outward.

Faith is satisfied with God and nothing else.

There’s also, again, our tendency through our human nature just to see vanity in everything. Ecclesiastes 2:11, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.” It’s all vain. It doesn’t seem to amount to anything. And we look at our work and we think, “What’s the point in it all?” Again, it’s seeing from our human fallen frame, seeing in that way and not seeing how we ought to see things.

There’s also human frailty. I want to give recognition to this as well. Not just human sin, but human frailty. Sometimes boredom arises not so much out of direct rebellion, but just the weakness of our frame. And so when we feel, for example, isolated, disconnected, when we’re in an experience where, for whatever reason, there is a kind of isolation in our life, is it possible for someone to feel a sort of sense of boredom or fed up, feeling just a lack of meaning in what they do, not knowing what to do because they have no sense of connection? Man was built for fellowship. It’s not good that man be alone. So if he’s left alone, his frame is such that he may fall into an experience, a kind of dullness within the soul, within the mind, within the heart. God intends us to come together—even what you’re doing here tonight. You know, as the years pass, it never ceases to amaze me, as the years go on, the power of gathering. The power of gathering. Just being together. If you throw your mind back five and a bit years ago, it may have put into sharp focus the power of gathering, because we weren’t gathering. You weren’t seeing people, not being around people, and you felt it. You felt it. Some of us, our patience wore thin very, very quickly in that context. And it’s part of the frailty of our frame.

I have not condemned the person, and didn’t when I had conversations with those who were expressing to me their struggle, isolating. I did not condemn them. I completely understood. We are not built for isolation. You can go and study. There’s a reason why those imprisoned, when they do certain things, they take them away from everyone and they put them into isolation. Absolutely destroy a person, destroy them mentally in ways that they may never recover. So there’s a frame, there’s a frailty in our frame in that way.

There’s also again, our tendency not to properly steward the body. And if we don’t properly steward the body, then there’s forms of weakness that set in. Our body isn’t able to—again, it’s not at the strength that it ought to be, and so it can succumb to things like this, more easily to feeling bored because, again, of the weakness of the body.

I also wonder if there cannot be, at times, a sense in which Satan also may play on this. Satan will actually come and elevate things in the mind or diminish things from the mind or work before a believer in the life of an individual in such a way to inflame a sense of pointlessness and boredom within the soul. They play on them in that way.

I also wonder if it cannot be at times a form of discipline from the Lord, in which He permits our frame, instead of supporting it by His grace because of our pride, because of sin, because of something else that He is teaching us about, that He permits us to come into this frame where we are, again, some form or expression of just, “I’m done, I’m fed up, I don’t feel any motivation to go on,” and it’s not depression necessarily, you’re just bored.

You think about the things that we get bored with specifically. We get bored with our jobs. We get bored with other aspects of our lives. Our marriage. We get bored with a conversation or a friendship. We get bored with a hobby. There are many things that are a part of our life, and then we get bored with it. And some of those things don’t really matter that much. It’s fine if you get bored with a video game, right? It’s not the end of the world. But if you get bored with your spouse, it’s catastrophic. You’ll see it come in there. Feed that. Nourish that. Encourage that. Put before your view alternatives, as you might see it. Other options. Contact from someone back in your school days. Oh, how many—how many marriages have failed because some fool sparked a fresh conversation with someone that they knew from high school. Oh, the devil. Working against the frailty of our human frame, playing us, moving us around like a pawn.

So what’s the cure? How do we cure various expressions of boredom? I want to say from the outset, no amount of distraction can warm a soul that God has determined should only be warmed by Himself. No amount of distraction can warm a soul that God has determined should only be warmed by Himself.

God wants you to be taken up with Him. We were singing—sometimes I marvel at the hymns that I have not chosen. He sang, number nine, “Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts,” “Thou fount of life, thou light of men, from the best bliss that earth imparts, we turn unfilled to thee again. We taste thee, O thou living bread, and long to feast upon thee still. We drink of thee, the fountainhead, and thirst our souls from thee to fill.”

God wants to be treasured by His people. And so there’s no cure outside of that, if God is, in a very particular way, addressing that as a problem, Christ is the one to satisfy us.

I mean, ultimately that’s it, isn’t it? One day we’ll be in glory. And we talk about the no mores. No more death, sorrow, and so on. No more boredom. No more boredom. Never be bored.

So what are some spiritual remedies to this? First of all, and we have begun here in most instances, ongoing repentance. Ongoing repentance. The danger is that some expressions of boredom might be reduced to, “That’s just my personality. That’s just the way I am. I need to quit constantly changing. I just need to be moving.” And you see this—people look at their resume, look how often they have moved from place to place. Now I understand that some people move from job to job strategically every two to three years. And it’s strategic, it’s totally intentional. It’s nothing about boredom. There’s a strategic aspect to it, I get that. But some people move from job to job just because they’re bored. They’re bored and they need to move on in order to, again, give a sense of meaning to their life. And so they’ll say things, “It’s just the way I am.” “Hey, how did that relationship go? Remember that sweet girl I saw you with last time?” “Yeah, it didn’t work out.” “What was wrong?” “Well, I just got bored.”

And this is the way they live. An excuse—”It’s just the way I am.” No! No! If you do that, you will never recover. Constantly live your life in that way and you will be the most unfruitful person.

So, we have to recognize it where it exists. What are we to be? “Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord,” Romans 12:11. And so there needs to be repentance. Repentance where we confess the wasted hours, we confess the murmuring that has arisen from this feeling, whether we described it as boredom or not.

The person who intentionally listens, the person who intentionally seeks God’s pardon daily will often be too conscious of the unmerited grace he has received from God to be afflicted with boredom. I’ll say it again. The person who intentionally seeks God’s pardon daily will often be too conscious of the unmerited grace he has received from God to be afflicted with boredom. Because every day they are coming, “My sin, praise God for the cross,” and they are living in the gratitude. The unmerited favor they have received from God and the standing they have in Christ, that person is unlikely to be a bored person. So ongoing repentance.

Intentional believing, that’s another thing. Intentional believing. So whenever you get to that point where you have in your mind “life is pointless, what’s the point in all this? I’m bored. It doesn’t mean anything.” Maybe you hit some point in the middle—people talk about midlife crisis. And sometimes boredom is a part of it. It’s like, “What has been the point of all of this? Where is this all going to? I’m 10, 15 years away from retirement and I don’t know the point. What have I been doing all this time?” So you begin to assess carnally your life. You look at the grind of the daily existence, just turning up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, clocking in, doing your job, looking at it and saying to yourself, “What is the point in all this?” And of course it’s denigrated in our day as well. Can corporate life suck the life out of you? Sure it can, absolutely. Are there certain careers that will drain every last ounce of energy out of you? Yes. But at the same time, be able to value, be able to value, though there are voices out there, and you see the comments, and you hear the remarks of people who are talking about making a move, making a shift, and keeping things fresh, and all the rest of it, don’t fall into the trap.

We are to come and intentionally believe, regardless of what’s going on in our life. Again, we made mention of this psalm earlier in the series, where David, at an end of himself, and he’s feeling the despair, he says, “Hope thou in God.” What’s he doing? He is talking to himself. He’s speaking truth into his own soul. He is counseling. He’s putting David on the other side of the counseling table. He’s putting him over there, and he sees this despairing David over there, and he starts addressing, “David, David, hope in God. Keep hoping in God.” That’s intentional believing. That’s purposeful believing. And so we take the promises of God and we have to do this sometimes, whatever’s going on in life. We can go through a crisis. We can go through a thought of “what is the point in all this?” Looking at our lives and wondering “why do I get up and go to work every day? To what end is all of this?” You put the word of God in front of you and you speak it to your own soul and you believe it.

Ongoing repentance, intentional believing, keeping your chief end in view, keeping your chief end in view. We are not called to invent meaning for our lives. You have meaning, you’re not searching for it, you have it. What was the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. You have meaning. You don’t have to find it or search for it. It’s not found in what you do in terms of your job title and description or the salary that you have or your station in life. You don’t have to be a young woman who thinks to herself, “No, you know, you become a mother,” and yet you look back, you start somewhere, sometime halfway through motherhood, and the kind of monotony of motherhood, and the children, and you start seeing maybe others who are living out their careers who are like you, and you start thinking back, and you’re valedictorian, and you’re best in class, and you succeeded in the career, the degree that you have, and you have all these things, you start imagining what life would be to leave the home and go out and fulfill that.

That’s not your identity. You are to recognize your chief end is to glorify God. God’s Word’s really plain. Speaking particularly to mothers in that context, it says very plainly that the young women are to be taught and encouraged to be keepers at home. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks of it. It doesn’t matter how it may be denigrated. It doesn’t matter how it might be devalued. God says, “This is your calling.” If you’ve been called to motherhood, oh, what a precious thing.

I was just saying to someone recently, in relation to this. You know, you think about it, you think about it and say, “Oh, the man gets to go out there and, you know, fulfill his career and do all this thing and the woman has to stay at home and raise the children.” And I think, “Hang on a minute here. Hang on a minute, think about it. Think about that for just a moment. You have these people that God gives to you, your children, right? You’re going to influence them more than anyone else on the planet. They are more like you than anyone else on the planet. And you get to mold them and shape them and disciple them and encourage them and educate them and so on and so forth. And so these are your offspring.” I mean, they’re the most precious thing in your life. And mom gets to stay with them. And dad has to go out to the end just to keep them alive, right? That’s his calling. He has to leave just to keep them alive. You ask, “What is the higher calling?” When you look at it in that way, certainly you cannot elevate the working to provide, just—when you look at it that way, the working to provide as superior in and of itself than the home discipleship of mothers.

So keep your chief end in view. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” You live for God’s glory. You find purpose in living for His glory in the smallest duty. Go and read again the passages here in Ephesians and Colossians that are spoken to slaves. People who had no freedom, no rights, no privileges, some of them living under ungodly masters, and they are there to value it as what they do, not merely to their master, but to their true master, even to Christ. So whether we wash dishes, prepare people’s taxes and all the rest of it, or teaching ungrateful college students, or whatever we’re called to do, doing it to the Lord, before the Lord, recognizing our purpose. Recognizing that we do this as to Him, for Him, for His glory, and that the ordinary things of our life, that though they may be seen in a cynical way as vanity of vanities, yet, yet, the Bible’s clear, whatsoever, even eating and drinking, can be done to the glory of your God and has immense value and eternal reward.

What other spiritual remedies? Ongoing repentance, intentional believing, keeping your chief end in view, giving yourself to the means of grace. You must give yourself to the means of grace. Can’t underestimate again the importance of this. The new believers in Acts 2:42, “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” That’s the mark of the church, constantly giving itself to the means of grace. That is a spiritual remedy. You come here to be calibrated, to have your mind fixed, your heart tuned, your soul calibrated aright before the Lord, and then seek to be more heavenly-minded, more heavenly-minded.

Soon after my conversion, I heard the statement said by someone who had been a believer much longer than me, that you can be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly use. And I thought, “I get the point. So heavenly minded that you are of no earthly use.” Now there may be a sense in which that’s true, in that someone may constantly be thinking or acting like they’re thinking in spiritual ways and spiritual conversation. But true heavenly-mindedness is more than conversation. True heavenly-mindedness, if there’s a true heavenly-mindedness, you cannot be anything but of earthly good. Was there anyone more heavenly-minded than Jesus Christ? Was there anyone who did more earthly good? “He went about doing good” is a summary Acts gives to his life. So to be more heavenly minded is to recognize what we have read here, the need to walk circumspectly. Life can’t be wasted. There has to be an intentionality and circumspect walk.

You don’t have it around here, but Albert Macaulay, an old Sunday school teacher and mentor and open air preaching, he used to describe what it was to walk a certain spec of Christian life, and he would describe it as, in a way that again, you don’t—I don’t know, I haven’t seen this around here—but some of the walls that would be around property in the United Kingdom, especially small homes, terrace homes, and they try to have just a little backyard, small little postage stamp backyard, and then they’d have often walls around. And these walls would separate all the little postage stamp yards. But of course, on the top of those walls, animals would come, birds would come, and so on. And they knew that. And so to deter that, they would put glass. They would put broken glass into the cement at the top of the wall, just to stop anything staying or resting there or being too long there. And so you go around the United Kingdom, you see these terraced homes. You could see the back. You would see these walls, and you’d see this broken glass on top. But you would see cats. Cats would still get up there and they would walk along. You’d see them placing their paws very carefully, front and rear, never touching the glass, ever.

That’s how you’d illustrate the Christian walk, the way a cat moves very intentionally. Being heavenly minded then is what governs that—thinking of the brevity of life, praying, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom,” Psalm 90. That will help us then to redeem the time because the days are evil. It’s difficult to be bored when there’s a sense of urgency in your conduct. When you know that time is God’s gift, that is to be stewarded by you. It’s hard to be bored. You think of how short your life is.

So, spiritual remedies. Very quickly, practical remedies. Practical remedies. There’s some overlap here, but let me just list a few things. First, have a sense of vocation. Having a sense of vocation. Embracing it. The vocation of life, the servants and how they were encouraged by the apostle. In Colossians 3:23 he says, “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.” Whatsoever you do, heartily as to the Lord, not unto men. Don’t look at men. Don’t see it as work unto men. See your vocation and fulfill your vocation as unto God.

And you’re going there, you’re doing, like I say, you’re marking papers. You’re grading exams and you’re looking at it going, “Dear me, did they listen at all? I mean,” and you’re exasperated. You start asking yourself, “What was the point? And these kids don’t seem to get it at all.” And you’re going through and asking, but don’t do it as unto men, but as unto the Lord and grade those papers. Know that the Lord, despite your sense of purposelessness that might flood into your soul as you look at how they are not returning to you what you’re looking for, yet the Lord sees the labor. Embrace your calling, whether at home or on trade. Don’t allow yourself to be swallowed up with boredom. Have a sense of holy purpose to God in your vocation. See what it is. Make the most of it. If you really see, “This is no accident where I am. Where I am right now matters to God. He has put me here for such a time as this.” Embrace it.

Find your place in spiritual service and fellowship. Find your place in spiritual service and fellowship. This is a practical thing. Galatians 5:13, “By love serve one another.” If you’re serving people, then you’ll be kept from boredom. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another.” So we’re coming by to one another, giving encouragement, words of exhortation. Oh, I wish more believers understood the value of that. Your words, your words of encouragement. “Sister, it’s good to see you.” Expressing words of thanks and gratitude and little words of encouragement. Boredom thrives in loneliness, but it dies in a sense of meaningful service. So visit people, pray for people, evangelize people. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,” Ephesians 2:10. So we give ourselves. What are the good works I can give myself to? Find your place in spiritual service and fellowship. Pray that prayer that the apostle prayed at his conversion. In Acts 9, Saul, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” I know men who pray that every day. It’s a good prayer.

And thirdly, elevate the weekly Sabbath and bodily stewardship. Elevate the weekly Sabbath and bodily stewardship. God has built rhythms of work and rest. “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God.” The seventh is holy, distinct, and we are to recognize that and embrace it. The Sabbath day, the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s day, whatever title you wish to give to it, is not purely about rest for the body. When I hear language that seems as if people think Sabbath is about physical rest alone, that’s the primary thing. I think you don’t get it. It’s unbelief. It’s unbelief. Is there an element of physical rest? Sure, that’s an aspect of it. But never forget, the priests in the tabernacle had twice the work to do on the Sabbath. Twice the work. And sometimes people look at me and say, “Well, you don’t really get a Sabbath.” Yes, this is my busiest day. This is my busiest day. Usually awake 5, 5:30. Usually not asleep before midnight. That’s my Sunday, and as you see, it’s jam-packed. I probably spend 10 hours here over the course of the day. You’re busy, you’re talking to people, you’re trying to deliver sermons in a coherent fashion.

But I want you to understand this. I want you to understand that the primary rest a man needs, the primary purpose of the Sabbath, the primary work God is doing is rest to the soul. When the soul is strong, when the soul is fed, when the soul is nourished, when Christ visits the soul and satisfies the soul, from there our strength truly is exhibited. Part of the problem people have today, of course, is that they won’t rest their bodies aright on any day of the week. “I struggle to get up in the morning.” I’ve heard that before. “I struggle to get up in the morning.” No, you don’t. You struggle to go to bed at the right time. That’s what you struggle to do. That’s the struggle, the discipline of getting to bed. And I am the worst at this. This is where my unbelief is, man, I need to be quick. I am the worst. The unbelief, I was mentioning it this week, Psalm 127. I read it this week in my own reading, Psalm 127. “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep.” It’s vain, why is it vain? Because sleep’s a gift from God. Some of you, even this whole spirit of boredom and your struggle with life and that spirit that comes over you is because you’re not taking stewardship of the body, getting to bed, rising up then with fresh energy to actually face your tasks. And you’re just existing through the day. And the boredom is actually the fruit of trying to drag yourself through with a body weakened through lack of sleep, lack of rest.

More could be said. Let me finish with this. As I prepared this message, I thought to myself—other side to this, I touched on, I mentioned it right at the beginning, that the world in which we are living right now has almost eliminated traditional boredom. We don’t get bored anymore. What do you do if you’re bored? You bring out your phone. You start doing something. And I wonder about the effect of that. If we can understand that historically, boredom would have signaled to someone something amiss in the soul, the Christian should not be bored. How can the Christian, redeemed by Jesus Christ, a child of God, washed in the Savior’s blood, given purpose, ever be bored. So the feeling of boredom would signal to the soul, something’s amiss.

Now you don’t get bored. And because of that, you aren’t seeing that there’s something spiritually wrong in the soul. You’re medicating. Like the person who goes through something in life and they take medication to dull the senses so they’re less aware of their despair. The phone is functioning in the same way. Technology is functioning in the same way. And you’re medicating yourself. And you don’t know that there’s a void in your soul. Therefore, I say to you, some—some of you need to let yourself get bored. When you’re sitting there in an environment where you’d normally take out your device and pass away the time, you need to just sit there and let yourself do nothing. And ask whether there’s a true contentment in your heart. Or is there some kind of restlessness? Are you fed up? Are you bored? It’s signaling that the mind and heart is not rightly walking with God.

Christ is to be our true contentment. Where He lives and dwells, you cannot be bored. Wherever He was around His disciples, when He came in His risen power and glory in their midst in John 20, “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” And if you live conscious of His presence, delighting in His nearness, rejoicing in His pardon, and worshiping Him for all that He has done and all that He means to you, you can sit in quietness, not just not bored, but in the highest state that can be experienced this side of eternity, taken up with Christ. That’s the need. May the Lord help us.

Let’s bow together in prayer.

We excuse so many aspects of our behavior. We have normalized so many things that actually work against the strengthening of the soul of man. Turn off the music. Set aside the devices. Allow your mind to be drawn into the text you read that morning, into the prayers that burden your soul and spend frequent seasons through the day, not bored, but in fellowship with God. Lord, help us to do this.

I pray that thou wilt bestow upon us an awareness of when we are neglecting the calling to have fellowship with the living God. Help us to do our duty as unto Thee. Help us to embrace our calling and vocation. Help us to delight ourselves in the Lord. And grant, O God, that we might redeem the time, redeem the time, redeem the opportunities, worshiping the Lord, serving our neighbor. Hear and answer our prayers, and forgive our shortcomings in this regard, and teach us Thy will and Thy mind. Bless our time of fellowship. Empower us to live for Thee this week. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God now and evermore. Amen.