How To Keep The Fire Burning

Introduction

I believe that our topic of discussion today has been a troublesome issue for believers for a long time. It honestly doesn’t matter if you are younger or older. It doesn’t matter what generation you grew up in. How rich or poor you are you have most likely wrestled with this issue. The question we have probably asked ourselves at one point or another is “How do I keep a lifestyle that is continuously burning for Jesus?” “How do I keep growing in my spiritual walk upward rather than waver from month to month or year to year or week to week?”

So that you understand that I am not preaching or speaking down to you in anyway today I want you to understand that this is something that I have wrestled with for most of my Christian life. Even still now God is opening and revealing to me by showing me the steps the men and women who came before me took.

Leviticus 6:8–13 NIV

The Lord said to Moses: “Give Aaron and his sons this command: ‘These are the regulations for the burnt offering: The burnt offering is to remain on the altar hearth throughout the night, till morning, and the fire must be kept burning on the altar. The priest shall then put on his linen clothes, with linen undergarments next to his body, and shall remove the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar and place them beside the altar. Then he is to take off these clothes and put on others, and carry the ashes outside the camp to a place that is ceremonially clean. The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out.

Leviticus

Look at the command that God is giving to the priests. The fire on the altar must be kept burning. It must not go out.

Although God is writing to the Levitical priests and how they are to do their duties, there is a lot here on how our spiritual life needs to be expressed. A continual burning fire.

I finished reading an A.W. Tozer book recently called The Pursuit of God and in that book this quote stood out to me.

“David's life was a torrent of spiritual desire, and his psalms ring with the cry of the seeker and the glad shout of the finder. Paul confessed the mainspring of his life to be his burning desire after Christ. "That I may know Him," was the goal of his heart, and to this he sacrificed everything. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I may win Christ.” - A.W. Tozer

The question we can ask is this. Can my life truly be a life that is full of spiritual desire constantly?

The biggest killer to our western Church is this thing called “the program”. It has become so normal so regular to come in and worship just because it is what we do, but in that we have lost our passion.

Why is this relevant to us?

1 Peter 2:4–5 NIV

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

What kills the fire?

What kills the fire?

I want us to pay attention to two things in this passage that the priests were commanded to do that if they did not would kill the fire.

a. The failure to remove the ashes.

עֹלָה

Leviticus 6:10 NIV

The priest shall then put on his linen clothes, with linen undergarments next to his body, and shall remove the ashes of the burnt offering that the fire has consumed on the altar and place them beside the altar.

If the priest were not to remove the ashes what would eventually happen to the fire? What what happen to the altar. It would become overwhelmed with ash.

Ask what happens in their personal stoves. (They are doing priestly duties)

I want us to notice something together here that may change the way that we look at things in our life personally.

Ask where the ashes come from.

The ashes that the priest is commanded by God to remove come from the burnt offering which he sacrificed to God in the first place.

You see in our lives there have been wonderful sacrifices that we have made to God. There have been wonderful moments that we have shared with God. There may have been powerful movements of God or miracles we have encountered, but if we allow that to continue to fuel our spiritual lives, our growth. If we believe that will continue to fuel the fire then the fire will eventually die out and the ash will pile up.

Those experiences we have had are wonderful and they remind us of the hope we have in God, but God has more that He wants you to experience. He doesn’t want you to keep thinking about what was, but rather what is going to be. When you think about what is going to be. WHat is going to come. What God can do it fuels your passion and it fuels your fire.

b. The failure to add more wood to the fire.

b. The failure to add more wood to the fire.

b. The failure to add more wood to the fire.

Leviticus 6:12 NIV

The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it.

There was this call for the priests not to just remove the ash, but they had to keep the fire burning by adding wood. If they only removed the ash then only half the work was being done. They were to keep feeding the fire.

If this is true in the physical world would it not be true to the fire of our spiritual life? We aren’t called to just remove the ash, but we are called to keep the fire burning in our life by feeding it. I am not telling you today to just stop dwelling on the good that was and hope for the good to come, but actually to feed your fire now, everyday.

What is the wood that kindles the fire?

I read in a commentary as I was studying for this sermon that it was hard and often dangerous for the Israelites to gather wood for this fire, but yet they continually added the wood.

It would be much easier to not let the fire burn at all than it would for them to continually get wood and add it to the fire. But this desire to maintain the command God had given them was greater than their desire for safety.

This should speak something to us. If we look at our life and wonder why is my life not on fire for Jesus like I want it to be. I want us to step back and take a look and ask is the effort even there? Do I even make effort to get to know Him through His word? Do I make effort to know Him through talking to Him in prayer. Do I make effort to meet in small groups and be encouraged and built up by other believers. Do I make effort to add wood to the fire of my spiritual life?

God desires the whole sacrifice.

It is really interesting because the Hebrew word used for sacrifice here is o-la(h). It means to burn something wholly or to be wholly sacrificed. God was telling the Israelites I want it all.

You see the fire on the altar symbolized the presence of God as does fire in general in scripture. When we say we are on fire for Jesus we can say there is a strong presence of God in my life that is evident and He is moving.

You see the fire didn’t just burn to burn but it burned to consume the sacrifice that was on the altar. Is there a sacrifice of your life that is worthy to be consumed wholly by God?

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 1690 A 200-Year-Old Fire

For well onto 200 years a fire that was started with the use of flint and steel by Tom Dalton in his Blue Ridge Mountain cabin has been kept going to this day. The fire has been moved from one cabin to another, as the old ones have given place to newer ones, and generation after generation of Dalton’s descendants have watched it carefully through the years. Today it is the oldest fire in the United States, perhaps in the world. Even in hot weather the fire requires a cord of wood per month; it has been no easy task, but always the fire has burned on.

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