Breaking spiritual stagnation

Sermon from Sunday, June 14, 2026 · Judit, evangelist (Agape Church, Tokyo), Text: Psalm 139:23-24 (LSG)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me, and know my thoughts! See if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!"
Psalm 139:23-24 (LSG)

You worship with fervor, you pray earnestly, you give, you serve, and yet you feel like you are stuck. The same attacks keep coming back, joy is wearing thin, family problems do not move. The temptation then is to do even more: more prayer, more worship, more fasting, more offerings. In this sermon from June 14, 2026, Judit takes David's confession in Psalm 139:23-24 as a compass to identify the root of spiritual stagnation and to find the real way out.

1. Why do we worship, exactly?

Before talking about stagnation, Judit asks a foundational question again: why do you worship God? The answer is never "to feel an emotion," nor "to get unstuck." We worship because God is the almighty Creator, because he paid for our redemption, and because we love him. Worshiping is also obeying the will of the Father.

"But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
John 4:23-24 (LSG)

Judit reminds us: we do not worship for ourselves. We worship for Him. The comfort, the healing, the anointing that God sometimes gives during worship are fruits of his grace, never the goal of worship.

Worship that flows, or worship that is forced?

If your heart truly receives God's love, worship, prayer, studying the Word, and service flow out naturally. You sing the way you hum when you are happy, you simply cannot stay quiet. But if that same heart is not touched by this love, you can go through all these motions on the surface and still remain spiritually dry.

2. The real face of spiritual stagnation

Most Christians interpret stagnation as a problem of quantity: not enough faith, not enough effort. So they decide to pile on more. But Judit warns: the root of the block is almost never there.

She uses the example of the older son in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:25-32 LSG). This older son did everything he was supposed to: he stayed, he obeyed, he served. His father loved him. But he had never received that love into his heart. When his younger brother came home, he could not rejoice. His outside was upright, his inside was dry. His religion had closed in on itself into legalism.

"This kind of stagnation," Judit says, "is not just about the prodigal's older brother, it is what can happen to any child of God, myself included."

The real problem is at the root

Judit offers the image of a tree. The heart is the root. Prayer, worship, reading the Word, fasting, giving, service, these are the fruits. When the root is healthy, the tree absorbs the sap, understands the Word deeply, and the fruits ripen naturally, in joy. When the root is wounded, eaten away, or blocked by a stone, you can force the fruit all you want, nothing really changes.

3. What God wants to search: the heart, not performance

David's prayer in Psalm 139:23-24 is the way out. David does not ask for more religious energy, he asks God to examine his heart. That is exactly the place Satan would rather you avoid.

Judit insists: the enemy is not too worried about religious rituals repeated in an empty way. What he dreads is that you stop, that you fall silent, and that you let God go down into the deep layers of your soul. So he drowns you in fatigue, screens, and the speed of modern life, to keep you from sitting alone before the Lord.

First, identify the enemy

"To defeat the enemy, you first need to know who he is." So the first step is not to do more, but to ask the Spirit: where is my stagnation? Where is my sin? What grievous way is in me? What am I holding in my hand that I refuse to give you?

4. Untreated wounds that block love

Judit gives concrete examples to make this tangible. Go over your life and review your relationships with your father, your mother, your siblings, your loved ones. What are the events where you were hurt, angry, humiliated, misunderstood?

Underneath these wounds, you often find silent vows that lock up the heart:

• "If that is what marriage is like, I will never get married."
• "I will not have children so I do not do to them what was done to me."
• "I will never open my heart to anyone again."
• "I do not bother anyone, no one bothers me."

These statements sound like common sense, but they are prison bars. They also distort your image of God: "He surely exists, but he will not do much for me. There is no point talking to him too much. He will only give me the bare minimum." Beneath a pious politeness hides a sulking heart.

The testimony of Judit's older sister

To illustrate this, Judit tells the story of her oldest sister, now in heaven. A Korean family settled in Japan (Fukuoka), four children, a civil servant father whose Korean salary, once converted into yen, did not leave much room to spare. As the oldest, her sister carried the household mentally. She concluded very early on: "Not having enough money is hard, and God only gives us the bare minimum."

When the school asked for a parent's signature for a Sunday event, she stopped even asking, she would copy the signature, take the family seal, and decide on her own, thinking "Mom and Dad will say no anyway." The same distrust carried over onto God: "He will not give it to me anyway. He will not listen to me anyway."

On the outside, she was solid, independent, "reliable." On the inside, she had put distance between herself and her earthly father, and between herself and her heavenly Father. An orderly believer, but with a heart that no longer dared to expect anything. This, says Judit, is what a wounded root that blocks the sap of God's love actually looks like.

5. The way out: fall silent, let yourself be searched, repent

The method Judit proposes is directly inspired by Psalm 139: stop doing, be still, pray, and let God search your heart.

• Draw near in silence. Keep praying, worshiping, reading, fasting, all of that remains essential. But start by being still in his presence.
• Ask God to show you the cause. "Search me, know my heart. Show me my grievous way." That is the real prayer that unlocks things.
• Name it concretely. Identify the wounds, the silent vows, the sins, the judgments, the grudges, the biases you carry about yourself, about others, and about God.
• Repent and let go. Confess each thing you recognize. Renounce those vows and those refusals.
• Let Jesus heal. He is the one who restores the root. You walk with him while the healing comes down.

"Inner healing and sanctification are not an add on to the Christian life. It is the main work you have to do for as long as you are on this earth."

6. Sanctification: the real work site of your life

Judit calls this work consecration, becoming holy. It is not a performance. It is letting Christ clean, realign, and put back in place the areas of the heart that we had arranged our own way.

When the root is cleaned, worship becomes a spring welling up again, prayer becomes a conversation again, the Word becomes nourishment again, and service becomes an overflow of love again. You no longer force it. You simply cannot help doing it.

What Satan tries to make you say

• "That is just how I am, it is my personality."
• "In my family, we have always worked this way."
• "That is not a real wound, it is fine."
• "You have to pray three hours a day, or God gets angry."

All these statements are tricks meant to keep you away from the root. The first one, "that is just how I am," condemns you to repeat the stagnation. The second one, "you have to do more," turns you into a tired, joyless religious person.

7. Receiving Jesus as Savior: and as Lord

Judit reminds us of the foundation. You do not enter into this life of a healed root without going through the door:

"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved."
Romans 10:9-10 (LSG)

But receiving Jesus once is not enough to keep giving him the throne every day. Our fleshly nature keeps springing back up like weeds in a garden. You need to, every day, declare again: "Jesus is my Master." You need to, every day, repent concretely.

"If my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
Daily confession makes this healing at the root possible.

The door and the trial

Judit uses a vivid image: believing in Jesus is receiving the invitation to sit the exam. That is essential. But after that, you truly have to run the race. "So run that you may obtain the prize… I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified" (1 Corinthians 9:24-27 LSG). Disqualified, Paul says, is a word that should make us read the Scriptures with humility and fear.

8. Bearing fruit or being cut off

Judit closes on John 15. Staying attached to Jesus means letting his words remain in us. And his words remain when we keep his commandments.

"I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you."
John 15:5-7 (LSG)

The real fruit, Judit stresses, is a character that becomes shaped in the image of Christ. Visible fruit is born from a well tended root, not from an added performance.

9. Two answers from Jesus, given to Susan Davis

Judit concludes by sharing two questions Susan Davis asked the Lord, along with the answers she received.

Praying for lost loved ones

"How should we pray for our loved ones who are far from God in these times of darkness?"

The answer: come to me seriously, truly believing that I have all the answers. Entrust me with your greatest concern. Tell me how much you believe I am the only way of salvation for them. Talk to me often about the pain you carry for them. Every day, every hour if need be. I never sleep. My answers will not always match what you want to hear, but I know what is best for them in the long run. What I want above all is for you, in secret, to learn to know me as your only hope, the one you desire the most.

Judit concludes: "The more you know God, the more you simply cannot help loving him, trusting him, and worshiping him. And the smaller the problems of this world start to look."

"Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you."
Jeremiah 7:23 (LSG)

A true believer, or a believer in name only?

"How can you know if you are really a believer or just a believer in name?"

The answer: even the demons believe that God exists. What I am looking for is a relationship, not a part time friendship that only calls on me in a crisis. Many of my children think they know me simply because they mechanically go to church. That is not an intimate relationship. Would a husband who only spoke to his wife once or twice a week be considered faithful? I do not want short relationships. I want to come before everything: father, mother, spouse, children.

"No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."
Luke 9:62 (LSG)

Key takeaways

• Spiritual stagnation is not solved first by increasing the quantity of religious acts. It is solved at the root of the heart.
• The key prayer is David's: "Search me, know my heart, show me my grievous way" (Ps 139:23-24).
• Old, untreated wounds give birth to silent vows that block the love of God.
• What Satan dreads is not your empty religion, it is your inner healing and your concrete repentance.
• Sanctification is the real work of your life: receiving Jesus, repenting every day, letting him reign.

Personal application

• In what area have you already "increased the dose" (prayer, service, fasting) without anything changing? What does this block say about the root?
• What silent vows might you have made one day? ("I will never again…," "No one is going to…") Are you ready to renounce them before the Lord?
• What image of God do you carry: a God who gives, or a God who only grants the bare minimum? Where did you learn that image?
• Set aside a time of silence before the Lord this week to concretely pray Psalm 139:23-24, and write down what he brings to light for you.
• In what area does Jesus want you to give him back the throne today?

Verses cited

• Psalm 139:23-24 (LSG)
• John 4:23-24 (LSG)
• Psalm 100:2-4 (LSG)
• Luke 15:25-32 (LSG)
• Romans 10:9-10 (LSG)
• Matthew 7:21-23 (LSG)
• 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (LSG)
• 1 Peter 5:7 (LSG)
• John 15:5-7 (LSG)
• Jeremiah 7:23 (LSG)
• Psalm 91:1 (LSG)
• Luke 9:62 (LSG)
• Luke 14:26 (LSG)

FAQ

I am already doing everything I should (prayer, worship, service). Why am I still stuck?

Because stagnation is almost never a matter of quantity. Judit says it clearly: if the root (your heart, your wounds, your vows, your untreated sins) is not tended to, no quantity of fruit will replace the cleaning of the root system. The way out begins with Psalm 139:23-24, in silence.

Concretely, how do you pray Psalm 139:23-24 at home?

Sit down alone, without a screen. Pray: "Lord, search me. Show me my grievous way. Show me what I am holding on to and refusing to give you." Note what comes up: someone you resent, a vow made as a child, a judgment you have made about God. Name it specifically and confess it. Renounce those vows in the name of Jesus. Come back to this several days in a row.

Is receiving Jesus once enough to make him my Lord?

No. Judit insists: receiving Jesus is the essential threshold, the "invitation" to the exam. But the flesh springs back every day. You need to declare every day: "Jesus is my Master," repent concretely, and stay attached to the vine (John 15). That is how you run the race all the way to the end.

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Sermon from Sunday, June 14, 2026 · Judit, evangelist, Agape Church (Tokyo).
Find the video version of this sermon on the church's channel.