Keep the Fire Burning

Keeping the Fires Burning

Sunbury GMC 9/29/2021

Scriptures: I Peter 4:7-10 “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

Acts 2:42 “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

Acts 4:32-35 “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”

Tonight, I want to talk a little about keeping the flame alive. I think that many of us have been drawing nearer to God in our lives. Many of us feel the flame of God’s presence in a greater way in our hearts and lives. Perhaps some do not feel this way. Summer is a good time to draw near to God. Besides the fact that all times are good times to draw near to God the summer affords various camp meetings to attend. These can often be special times of drawing nearer to God as well as our Christian family. This is all a wonderful thing.

Now the unfortunate reality is that we often live in cycles if we are not careful. So often we have revival, we have camp meetings or make big strides in our walk with God, then it can sort of peter out until we get to the next revival or camp meeting or time of spiritual growth. We just kind of hope our steps forward during times of growth are bigger than slide backwards between periods of growth. I am not going to spend any more time on this idea, because we do not have to live like that. The Christian life really doesn’t look like that. It just is a reality that we sometimes see as a church. Well, I want to talk about how to avoid doing that tonight.

One of the best scriptural examples of this consistent spiritual fervency and growth is the early church. They grew explosively at first and then steadily thereafter in the city of Jerusalem until they were forced out. Their missionary endeavors were so successful that Paul was accused of having turned the world upside down as he journeyed through the civilized world spreading the gospel. How did they accomplish such revival that continued year after year? What were some of the marks of their success? How did the early church live following Pentecost which caused so many to turn to Christ?

Let’s look at 1 Peter and see the advice he gave to the church at the time that would enable them to continue their revival. “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. Use hospitality one to another without grudging. As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.”

Be Sober. Be serious minded, be clear minded. Use sound judgement and act sensible. This is not advice against having a sense of humor. It is advice against distractions of the world. It is advice against allowing your judgement to be clouded both by things taken in that cloud your mind and by worries of the world. There are so many things we must all consider, but to keep our minds clear, to act sensible we need to focus on what really matter. Of course, many earthly considerations must be attended to. We must eat, we need clothing and shelter, but to truly be sensible we need to give eternal matters the preeminence. Be sober is just reminding us not to get to caught up in seemingly important earthly matters at the expense of eternal concerns.

Watch unto prayer. Why do we need to be clear headed? Well, we need to be able to watch unto prayer. If we are so concerned with earthly matter, we will not see the eternal matters that should be matters of prayer. How easy it is, when encumbered by earthly weights, to be like Samson. When we are having or have had spiritual growth let us be careful. Let us be sober and watch unto prayer so that it cannot ever be said of us that “They knew not that the Spirit of God had departed.”

“And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.” It struck me as I was preparing this sermon how often we are told to show love one to another within the church. I think we often focus on those outside the church, and we should, but over and over the mark of a group of Christians is their love for each other, not necessarily their love for the sinner. This verse says, “Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.” Wow, that’s tough, isn’t it? Some Christians are annoying! All Christians do something stupid every now and then. I wonder if other Christians can be harder to love for Christians because maybe we feel like they don’t need it. It is easy to love sinners, and to excuse anything they do. They are sinners, if we don’t show them God’s love how will they know God loves them? Of course, it’s going to hurt to love a sinner, of course they are gonna do foolish things, they are sinner that’s what they do! But, for those who are Christians, they already know that God loves them, and they love God why do we need to love them too? And when a brother in Christ does something foolish and hurtful maybe it hurts just a little bit more, because they are a Christian, they should know better! Maybe it is easier to love sinners. That doesn’t matter, God tells us here to have fervent love for one another! Why is it so important to love other believers?

There are several reasons. First, people are still people, saved or unsaved. Guess what, we need each other! We were never created to do it on our own. I love this country and the culture of individual responsibility and achievement that built it. But there is a problem. We, as Americans, so often want to make it on our own, and expect others to do the same. That is not how we are created. While our faith is a deeply personal matter, our faith will not survive without a community. Why are we told to “forsake not the assembling ourselves together to promote love and good works.” Because we cannot make it along. We come to church because we need each other!

Second, John 13:35 says “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” It is not just our love for sinners, its not just that we act different, its not even that we might look a little different. No, all men know we are Jesus’ disciples by our love one to another. If we go around talking about people behind their backs, tearing people down, telling our unbelieving friend how horrible our church people are, we are just going to drive them all away. On the other hand, if we love each other people will see that, they will want to be part of that, and people will come to Jesus because we love the brethren!

A third reason to love each other is shown in the next phrase. “For charity shall cover the multitude of sins” Now lets notice a few things this verse is saying and a few it is not. First what it is not saying. This verse is in now way saying or implying that our love for others makes God blind to our choices. If we choose to disobey God we cannot make it up by showing love to another person! Nor does love for God cover up sin in our lives. The reason for this is plain for he who loves God does not sin. That is the great evidence of our love for God. If we claim to have love for God we will obey Him, if we disobey Him we prove the lack of love in our hearts. Love covering the multitude of “sins” is never an excuse for sin in our lives as some would make it.

Next, some of the things this verse is saying. First is it not because of God’s love that He forgave us our sins? For God so loved the world… and But God commendeth His love toward us in that while we were Yet sinners Christ died for us. It is certainly the due to the love of God that we have found forgiveness and cleansing for sin.

Also likewise we, because of our love to others aught to forgive them if they “sin” against us. Now of course all sin is against God, but in our lives people will often, whether knowingly or accidentally do us wrong. Many times even Christians will hurt us or those we love with their actions. What are we to do when this happens? It is in this regard that our love one toward another covers the multitude of hamartia. Now I switched to the Greek work not to show off but because this word has a larger meaning than simply sin. Hamartia is one of the main Greek words translated sin. Now it can mean other things. Sin has a narrow definition however the word hamartia can have a broader range of meanings. Based on context and other Biblical teachings we generally go with a narrow definition of the word. Here is an acceptable passage to bring in the idea of mistakes an shortcomings. The word hamartia can also refer to unintentional wrongdoing because of ignorance, mistake, or human infirmity and shortcoming. People will always make mistakes that hurt each other.

This verse also carries the meaning “For charity shall cover the multitude of mistakes.” We need to love each because, no matter how saved or sanctified we are, we are still people! No matter how perfect our hearts, or our intentions may be, all people make mistakes. I am not talking about intentionally disobeying God or intentionally hurting one another. I am talking about accidents and mistakes. They happen to everyone. We need to love each other, because loving each other truly allows us to overlook such mistakes and understand that if I love you, and you love me, and I hurt you that I did not mean to because I love you and would never want to hurt you! And you will forgive me because that’s what love does. What incredible unity we would have in the Family of God if really loved each other.

As I mentioned earlier, our love should not be limited to our brothers and sisters in Christ. The next verse our passage for tonight says “Use hospitality one to another without grudging”. Hospitality is to show benevolence, or kindness and care, to strangers. Here we get to those outside the family of God. We are called to be reflections of God’s love to the world. We must first love each other, but if we hide inside our church how will people know that God’s love is just waiting for them and that a community of loving Christians is just waiting to help them along? We need to show our love to those outside our circle of Christian friends so that they can feel God’s love from us, so that one day they may know God. In our focus on loving each other we must not neglect loving those who aren’t already in our circle of friends and believers. It may seem like an awful lot of love is required. That’s true, but we are loving with God’s love. God does not have a short supply of love. It is never going to run out. The nature of love also tends to allow for such expansive love. Those who are stingy with their love find themselves running out of love at times, but those who are generous with their love find that the more we love the more capacity we have to love. Because of the nature of love and the fact that it is God’s love and not our own we do not have to be afraid of running out of love so love generously.

Now I started this message out tonight by saying that this was advice from Peter on how to keep revival fires burning and keep growing spiritually even after the “revival” or special time of growth has ended. How do we keep the ground we have gained without the cycle of getting closer to God and slipping away? What is an example of this? Why did I dig these verses out for this topic? Well, let’s look at Acts. Starting in 2:42 “And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” We can see that firstly they did not neglect to live soberly and pray. The aftermath of the first revival, which truly continued in incredible growth for years and years, was characterized by prayer. The early Christians were focused on eternal matters and did not fail to fellowship with God. We can also see here that they continued with each other. They were in fellowship with each other. They were also steadfast in doctrinal teaching. Do not neglect doctrine. Your set of beliefs is very important. Make sure your set lines up with the apostles, for they taught the doctrine of Christ. We see that the early Christians gathered together regularly to worship and to help each other however needed. That why we come to church. We are here to worship God, and to learn about God, but also to build relationships with our family member. We will never make it alone, but if we do it together with Christ and our brothers and sisters in Christ, we will be unstoppable as a church.

As we move on through the beginnings of Christianity, we find this account in Acts 4:35-37 “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.”

These early Christians were living the advice that Peter would later give to other believers. Peter surely saw the way God moved in those earliest days and realized the keys of growth and continuance shown here. This is certainly one of the ways that the early church kept the fires of revival burning and growing for decades. We cannot ignore this example if we want to continue in growth and relationship with Christ as a body of believers. So, let’s take the example of the early church, and the advice of Peter and do our best to put it into action.

Do you want revival to continue in your heart? Do you want revival to continue in this church? Are you satisfied with moving a few steps forward and then slipping back a few steps until the next time we take some steps forward, just hoping that individually and as a church we made more progress than we will lose? I know that no one here desires that, but it does happen far too often. So as much as possible let’s keep the fires burning by putting God’s words into action. Let’s keep loving God. Let’s keep loving each other. Let’s keep loving those outside our normal circles. Let’s keep gathering together to lift each other up. Let’s walk this road together so that if any fall we can help them up. Let’s keep holding each other up and helping each other along. Let’s keep the fires of revival burning in this Church.