Degrees of Change Part 2
Degrees of Change • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Red Hot Love
Red Hot Love
Gratitude changes my attitude and thanksgiving changes my living. What are you thankful for today. That which you are most grateful for is probably what you love the most. It is interesting that we express the most gratitude for that which we love the most. There are many things we would say we love the most but we do not always show the most gratitude for. Instead, our gratitude grows as cold as our love.
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Can you believe the warm temperatures here in November. Yet, in one day it may turn extremely cold then back to hot the next day. Even the birds are confused and have debates on when they should migrate. The degrees of change in temperature can be drastic from one day to the next. And the result for many of us is sickness. The same applies when your walk with Christ has days where your love and obedience to Him drastically varies from one degree to another. It makes for a sick soul.
Have you ever noticed in our sanctuary that the temperature can change so quickly? One minute I have people coming up to me saying it is so hot then the next thing I know they are all grabbing blankets. Unfortunately, this is reflective of some people’s walk with Christ. Hot one minute and cold the next.
In Matthew 24:12-13, those who are “saved” are those whose love endures, remains hot until the end.
We are living in the days of increased lawlessness. Lawlessness is not just an increase in the social crime rate. It also involves those who endorse or promote lawlessness. It includes those who say and do nothing of lawlessness. It includes those who seek to redefine moral laws according to their own fleshly appetites. It includes those who reject the ethical and transcendent laws of God. It includes those who in any way ignore and willfully violate God’s laws. It is to deny God, to create your own god or ideas of god or even live as if there is no god or to make yourself your own god. It is to live in rebellion against God. When we as believers have been told or read in His Word what God requires of us and do not do it or do just the opposite, that is lawlessness.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
It is hard to be upset about the lawlessness in our nation when there is so much lawlessness within our own ranks. When it is easier to leave a church than to change your heart. When believers cannot get along, refuse to reconcile, hold grudges, are easily offended, continue in sexual perversion, have an angry or bitter disposition, live discontent, it is hard to ask God why there is so much lawlessness around us.
When the church has refused to take the cultural lead to spread the Gospel of Christ, to be a light in the darkness, to be the voice of truth in their workplace, to take active roles in their civil government from the local community to the highest offices of their government, or to be godly entrepreneurs, or to simply actively raise their children to honor the Lord, it is difficult to ask God, how did we get here? We can see the same pattern with Israel throughout Scripture. So what is lawlessness?
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
The Hebrew word for lawlessness in the Bible is פֶשַׁע pesha and means transgression. It comes from the root word פָשַׁע pasha which means to break away from God’s authority and become an apostate (one who has abandoned or lives contradictory to the faith).
In Matthew 24:12-13, these are the words and warning of Jesus to them then and to us now and until the days of His return. He warns that many of even those who profess to be His true followers will fall prey to this spirit and age of lawlessness. It warns of lawlessness increasing because the compromise, justification, redefining of righteousness, and lowering of His standard would increase. He knew that as the church adopted cultural norms of the flesh, pagan ideologies, vain philosophies, and false doctrines, the church would be infected and many would bring the world’s ways into the church instead of the churches ways into the world. This is His address to the church in Revelations 2:4-5:
But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.
You might say, “Pastor, why the strong message?” The days of lawlessness are upon us in a greater degree than you may realize. But the temperature of the churches love for the Lord has grown cold as evident by the world around us. It is evident by what is now preached in the pulpits and pawned off as the Word of God.
“ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
Lukewarm preaching is not what we need in this hour. I am not trying to preach Hell Fire and Brimstone. But I am trying to preach true salvation, true repentance, true holiness, real responsibility and accountability as disciples of Christ. I am seeking to provoke you to a deeper and more sincere love for the Lord that is matched by a deep and sincere living for the Lord. Though this started out strong, this is my admonishment to you church:
And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Every day the degrees of change in our nation are drastic. One of the greatest degrees that need change is not in our nation but in our churches. What will allow the church to survive in the toughest of days is a red hot love for the Lord. A love that endures. A love that is evident in our private as well as our public lives. If you do not have a sincere love for the Lord in private, your public expression is superficial to say the least. If you do not have s sincere love for the Lord in public, you probably have deceived yourself in private. We need a real, red hot and enduring love for God.
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
The endurance this verse speaks of does not come from Car Shield or the Energizer bunny. This endurance comes from a sincere and deep love for Christ. When our love for Jesus is so sincere and red hot, not lukewarm or growing cold, then our attitude reflects our gratitude and our holiness will endure until the end.
Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
Do not let your love for Christ, his Church and people grow cold or even lukewarm. Keep your prayer life red hot. Keep your worship life red hot for Jesus. Keep your integrity and your conscience red hot. Keep your passion for the Word of God red hot. Keep your desire to see the lost redeemed in Christ Jesus red hot. Keep your gratitude red hot not your attitude. Keep all of these alive and active, obedient and increasing. Let the power of the Blood of Christ be renewed in your salvation and return to His Lordship with a red hot love for Christ.
