Untitled Sermon

Romans 5:1-5

Hello Friends and welcome to Reignite Your Heart. I am so glad that you have joined me here today. My name is Nancy Matus and today I would like to talk about

tapping into the power of the Holy Spirit to reignite the fire in your heart when it comes to your walk with the Lord.

I would like to take a moment to read Romans 5:1-5 with you today.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

As I sat down to read this verse it reminded me of the true treasure I have been given through our Lord Jesus Christ. As I have put my faith in Jesus I have peace with God, a peace that resonates deep within me. As I look back on this past year and the many struggles I have had to go through I am reminded that through it all God’s peace has been with me. And if you have placed your faith in Jesus, God’s peace is with you also. I am reminded that because I have put my faith and my trust in Jesus that I can stand on the grace of God. I am ever so thankful for God’s grace because I need it every day! God’s grace is so powerful and through this grace I can rejoice because I have hope! I have hope in knowing that God is always with me and that He is in control. I have hope in knowing where I am headed. But if I’m really honest this last year has been a struggle and there have been many times where I have had to cry out to God to help me with my unbelief. There is a story in Mark chapter 9 where a Jesus heals a boy with an unclean spirit. But as this boy is brought before Jesus the father of the boy pleads with Jesus saying if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus replied by saying If you can? All things are possible for one who believes and immediately the father responded I believe, help my unbelief!

This has been the cry of my heart. Going back to our scripture for today verse 3 states that not only do we have access to God’s grace and we can rejoice in the hope of the glory of God but we rejoice in our sufferings.

I had to stop there because it reminded me of James 1:2 where it states to count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you meet trials of various kinds.

During my time of unbelief I couldn’t understand these verses. How could I rejoice in my suffer and how on earth could I count it all joy. I asked God, “do you see the things I am facing and going through? Do you see how messed up our world is right now?” The answer is yes He does see it all and He does know all that is going on in my life and in yours.

So going back to our topic for today, I recognized that I needed to have the fire in my heart reignited by the power of the Holy Spirit. I had to come to the realization that God can use every situation for His glory and that as I endured the difficulties I was facing God was building my character and as my character was being built He was increasing my faith because I couldn’t deny that He was with me every step of the way.

How do I know that? Because verse 5 states that God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. I just wasn’t tapping into it.

I had to recognize that I needed to spend more time with God than looking at the situations around me. I was drowning in all I was going through and my family was going through and because I wasn’t keeping my eyes on Jesus I was being pulled down by my circumstances.

It required me to surrender my circumstances to God and let Him have control of them instead of me taking them upon myself. As I spent more time in prayer and reading His Word and putting what I was reading into practice God began to move in my heart. That little flickering flame that was about to go out, came to life. It began to build and grow to the point where I can’t contain it. That love that God has poured into my heart is fueling that fire through the Holy Spirit. The more I seek the power within me from the Holy Spirit the more alive and on fire I feel. It is overflowing from me and pouring out to others. And it is all by the grace of God.

My encouragement to you today is to take time to spend with the One who created you and loves you and sees all you are going through and let Him pour His love into you. Let the Holy Spirit fuel the fire within you so that we all can recognize the hope we have in Jesus Christ and then let that hope pour out onto others so they can come to know the One who saves. May you blessed today and I look forward to being with you again really soon.