"Avoiding The Sloth"

Illus: When I dated Leah, we lived 59 miles apart. In the first 5 months I logged almost 15,000 miles. Why? I had passion for her, and our relationship.  

The creative force behind all great art, all great drama, all great music, all great architecture, all great writing is passion.   

Nothing great is ever accomplished in life without passion. Nothing great is ever sustained in life without passion. Passion is what energizes life.   

Passion makes the impossible possible. Passion gives you a reason to get up in the morning and go, "I’m going to do something with my life today."   

Without passion life becomes boring. It becomes monotonous. It becomes routine. It becomes dull.   

God created you with the emotions to have passion in your life and He wants you to live a passionate life.   

Passion is what mobilizes armies into action. Passion is what causes explorers to boldly go where no man’s gone before.   

Passion is what causes scientists to spend late night hours trying to find the cure to a dreaded disease.   

Passion is what takes a good athlete and turns him or her into a great athlete where they’re breaking records. You’ve got to have passion in your life.  

One day a man walks up to Jesus and he says, "Lord, what’s the most important thing in the Bible?" And you know what the Great Commandment is. We’ve talked about it many times.  

Jesus said, "I want you to love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Nothing matters more than that. That’s the number one thing in life. I want you to love Me passionately."   

Nothing else matters in life if you don’t love God passionately. God doesn’t want you to love Him halfheartedly.   

He wants you to love Him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength.  

I love the paraphrase of that verse, Mark 11:30, from The Message "Jesus said, ’Love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy." Focus on the word "passion".  

That word, in Greek, is the word "heart." God is saying I want you to put some muscle into it, put some energy, put some emotion into your relationship with Me.   

Don’t be a wimp about your relationship with Me. Don’t be namby-pamby. Don’t be half-hearted. Give it all you’ve got. 

Jesus is saying, "If you’re going to follow Me, you’ve got to go it with passion. You’ve got to give it some oomph, some spark, some zip, some enthusiasm, some zest. Live passionately."  

In fact, this truth is all through the Bible. The Bible tells us that we’re to seek, love, serve, obey, and trust God passionately.   

In our culture it’s okay to be passionate about a lot of things. Football, baseball, fairs, music, and politics.   

When our kid does something special that causes us to shout with excitement people think, "He sure is passionate about his kid."   

If you do that at a game, people think that you are a real fan, but if you were to act that way about your faith people might think that you’re a fanatic or a nut case. Just keep your cool, right?  

Read: Romans 12:11

Romans 12:11 ESV

11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.

That is the focal point this morning that we will be sitting on. This verse out of Romans is pretty straight forward.   

Friends, we must keep the fires going in our spiritual life. Notice, it’s not automatic. It’s a choice. It’s a discipline. It’s something you must maintain.   

You are not by nature passionate about God. It’s something that you must choose to do. You get distracted and everything in life conspires to keep you from being passionate about God.   

Paul says keep your passion going. Keep the fires going. It’s a discipline. It’s not just automatic. Passion can often lose steam. Illus: Helium balloons  

This morning we are going to look at three passion snatchers in the church. These are the things that rob our joy and try to make us coast through life without any real connection with Christ.   

The first of these passion snatchers is ...  

1. An unbalanced schedule  

That means either if you’re overworked or you are under worked, you’re going to lose your passion for life and lose your passion for God.   

Life is a series of seasons, the Bible says. There’s a season for everything. And there’s a rhythm to life. You need both in your life, both input and output.   

You need both rest and work. And too much of either will cause you to lose your passion.  

When you schedule is unbalanced, it will become unbalanced in the church journey too. For some of you, you will give give give.   

You’re always helping, you’re always sharing, you’re always serving, you’re always working, you’re always being generous. And you never take time to recharge.   

If you never take time to recharge you’ve got unbalanced on the ministry side, on the work side, you’re going to eventually get compassion fatigue.  

What is compassion fatigue? You just stop caring. You don’t care about God anymore, you don’t care about other people anymore, you don’t care about anything anymore.   

Why? Because you’re burning out from too much work, from too much service. When you care and care and care, eventually you stop caring.  

Now there is the opposite here as well. You're willing to take take take. Now, I'm not talking about taking from people so much, but from God.   

You read the Bible, go to studies, listen to Klove, get fed day in and day out, always growing in input but no trajectory, mission, or ministry involvement. That can unbalance you as well.  

I don’t know which one is your problem, but my guess is one of them is or one of them is very close to being a problem.   

You either have too much output and not enough input. Or you’ve got too much input and not enough output. You’ve got to figure that part out. I’m sure God can help you out.  

Let me give you a little shock though. Bible study without ministry is extremely dangerous. Listen to what James says in Read: James 2:17

James 2:17 ESV

17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

The Bible says that you need both in your life, input and output. You need work and you need rest. You need balance in your schedule. What’s the antidote for that?   

Read 1st Timothy 4:7

1 Timothy 4:7 ESV

7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

How do you do that? One word. Balance.   You need to have time to worship with God privately and corporately. Illus: Third Day  (My early days of worship)

You need to have times when you’re fellow-shipping with other believers. You need to have times when you’re reading God’s word and growing as a Christian. You need balance.  

A second passion snatcher is ...  

2. An unused talent (ability)  

When you don't utilize the talents that God has blessed you with, you will likely lose passion for God.   

1st Peter 4:10 says, As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace:  

They’re for the benefit of other people. My gifts are for your benefit. Your gifts are for my benefit. You are to use those gifts in the service to other people.   

God has given you a special role in this world. He wants you to contribute with your life. God says, I have given you these gifts and talents.  

If you don’t use your talents, you’re going to lose your passion. God did not give you special abilities just to sit on them and do nothing with. If you don’t use it you’re going to lose it.   

Your life is more than your job. God wants you to have a ministry. That’s why you need a ministry in your church to use the talents you’re not using in your job.   

Yes, you need a job, but you also need a ministry that expresses what you’re good at in the KOG. That’s why I encourage everybody here to find a ministry.   

If you don't know what that looks like, just make time to visit with me about your passions and talents and giftedness and I will find you tools to help discover your shape in the church.  

We want to help you find where you can be serving. Who knows, it may not be a ministry even started yet. The third and final passion snatcher that we will look at today is ...  

3. An undisclosed sin  

This is a big one. Few things rob us of joy, rob us of confidence, rob us of passion, more quickly than guilt. Here’s how it works with guilt from the sin in our lives. 

We don’t walk around thinking, "I have a sin in my life. I am a guilty person." No, we rationalize it consciously. Consciously we think, "It’s ok. Everybody’s doing it. It’s no big deal."   

But subconsciously it gnaws at us. Subconsciously whenever it gets quiet that guilt pops into your mind. Subconsciously right now as I’m talking about it, it begins to pop into your mind.  

Read: Psalm 38:4-6

Psalm 38:4–6 ESV

4 For my iniquities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. 5 My wounds stink and fester because of my foolishness, 6 I am utterly bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning.

Here’s the truth about us as human beings. We can’t feel enthusiasm and guilt at the same time. We can’t feel guilt and passion at the same time. Guilt by its very definition robs you of passion.  

We’re not made to live with guilt. God did not make you to carry guilt around in your life. He made us to deal with it immediately.   

He sent Jesus to this earth to die on a cross to say, I want to offer you a gift of freedom from guilt. That is God’s gift.  

But some of you right now, you’re in the midst of a personal system crash like that when a computer crashes.   

Truth of the matter is the joy in your life has crashed and you’re trying to keep the enthusiasm up, you’re trying to keep the passion alive.   

But the guilt keeps crashing your system. So, what do you do? Fortunately, this is a problem that can be remedied quickly.   

You can do something about it right now. Because Jesus has already done all that’s needed to be done to deal with our guilt. That’s why He came to this earth.  

Read: 1st John 1:9

1 John 1:9 ESV

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And I want to spend some time here this morning doing that very thing. I would encourage you to do it now! Don’t wait. Sometimes we carry guilt around for weeks, months, days.   

You shouldn’t carry guilt around even an hour. The minute that you realize that the red warning light that’s flashing saying Do something about it. Don’t carry it at all.   

Right now, in your mind, in your heart, take it to God and say, "I confess it. God, would You relieve me of this guilt? Thank You for forgiving me. Would You restore my passion?"